The OSS and Ho Chi Minh Unexpected Allies in the War against Japan (Dixee R. Bartholomew-Feis) (z-lib.org)

190 CHAPTER SEVEN

Patti reported to his OSS superiors, to theater headquarters, and to the
American embassy on both the Viet Minh organization and their efforts
against the Japanese. Although neither theater headquarters nor the em-
bassy was pleased that Patti was working with Indochinese agents, which
exceedingly irritated the French, the OSS could not ignore the reality of the
situation. Patti, recognizing the “American penchant for substantive evi-
dence,” presented to Heppner a case ffile on the Viet Minh’s accomplishments
since the Japanese coup. Patti felt confif dent in his presentation of the facts,
what he described as a “respectable box score”: “[The Viet Minh had
brought] six provinces in northern Tonkin under the military and adminis-
trative control of the Viet Minh, [had] an established Army of Liberation
with self-defense and guerrilla units, an effective propaganda organization
with limited press and radio capability, a political-social and military pro-
gram, and that all-important ingredient, popular support from the Vietnam-
ese people.”59

Heppner decided to take Patti’s data directly to Generals Wedemeyer and
Gross, bypassing the American embassy altogether. From Chungking, the
information was forwarded directly to Donovan in Washington. “After that,”
Patti (wrongly) boasted, “my activities and relationships with the Vietnam-
ese were not questioned during my assignment in the China Theater.”60

In the fif rst week of June, Ho Chi Minh informed Patti that he had as many
as 1,000 “well-trained” guerrillas who were at Patti’s disposal for “any plan”
he might have to ffight the Japanese. Patti did not immediately take Ho up on
his offer since, in the ffirst two weeks in June, the Deer Team seemed to be
making progress with the French. As part of the mission, twenty-ffive French
troops were to be prepared to travel as an advance party with Thomas. Hav-
ing only recently escaped the pursuit of the Japanese, the men were ill-
clothed and poorly equipped, and Thomas decided to provide them with
what extra uniforms, shoes, and equipment he could come up with. In addi-
tion, he ordered the men to shave the heavy beards they had grown during
their escape from Indochina so they could “pass as Americans for the benefif t
of the local people.” Défourneaux recalled that he transferred the equipment
for the French troops to the FMM in Ching-hsi under cover of darkness be-
cause he “did not want the Chinese to know that we were arming the
French.” Meanwhile Thomas requested Chinese approval to set up a train-
ing area. The search for a staging area near the border proved frustrating to
Défourneaux and the other Americans. They proceeded on foot from place to
place, usually in the rain, seemingly without a plan, frequently without the
company of Major Thomas.61

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 191

By midmonth the situation made even less sense to the men. On June 17
Défourneaux received a radio message, which he forwarded by runner to
Thomas, ordering them to stop issuing material to the French. Unaware of
the debates raging in Kunming, the men continued training the French
without a clear understanding of their mission. Finally, the fif rst week in
July, new orders arrived, but only after a series of contradictory messages
telling the team to travel fif rst to Poseh and then to Ching-hsi. Défourneaux,
Lieutenant Langlois (a French offficer), and twenty-four “individuals,” to
be known collectively as Group Tersac, were to proceed overland to Indo-
china. The remainder of the American and French troops were to travel to
Poseh for jump training with the intent of parachuting behind Japanese
lines in Indochina. Thomas then departed, leaving his second to arrange the
logistics of the march.

On July 8 Défourneaux met with the ranking French offif cer in Ching-hsi,
Major Revole (also spelled Revol). Described as an “old colonial offficer,” Re-
vole impressed both Thomas and Défourneaux with his insight.62 Revole
hinted to Défourneaux that the situation in Vietnam might be more complex
than the Americans realized, commenting that “the Vietminh question was a
factor to be seriously considered.”63 Revole counseled Thomas to “wait a
minute” before heading into Tonkin, adding that a joint American-French
mission had “no business going back there unless we know the Viet Minh are
going to cooperate with us.” Thomas was surprised by Revole’s comments.
At that point, he was quite ignorant about French Indochina. “About all I
knew,” Thomas wrote, “is that it was called French Indochina. I knew
vaguely that it was a French colony and the missionaries came over ffirst, fol-
lowed by the French soldiers. I knew the French had rubber plantations, and
they took profif t out to France. That’s about it.” As Thomas recalled it, his
exchange with Revole was the ffirst time he heard the words “Viet Minh.”
When he asked Revole who the Viet Minh were, Revole told him “it was a
guerrilla force that had been organizing in Tonkin for the last several
months.”64 This information took Thomas by surprise. For the fif rst two
months of his tenure in China, Thomas had assumed he would work with the
French, or French-led Vietnamese. “There was no idea in the beginning of
contacting any Vietnamese guerrillas in place.” Thomas testifif ed, “We didn’t
know they were there.”65

Although Thomas and Défourneaux were just “discovering” the Viet
Minh in early July, they still believed they would be working with French
troops, not Vietnamese guerrillas. However, by that time Captain Patti’s pa-
tience with the French had reached its limit.66 He had already concluded

192 CHAPTER SEVEN

that using Ho’s guerrillas was more realistic than waiting for the French to
reach some sort of mutual accommodation with the Americans. When Patti
approached Helliwell with his plan to use Ho’s men, Helliwell, worried about
the “political repercussions,” continued to equivocate. Patti, however, was
prepared and rationalized that the practical advantages simply outweighed
the disadvantages. He pointed out:

If we used Ho’s unit at Cho Chu we would eliminate the problem of
walking or transporting the French a distance of 25 miles to the border,
plus the additional 150 miles to Hanoi. On existing jungle trails the
actual distance would have been closer to 250 miles, ten to ffifteen days’
travel time. Other important considerations favoring the use of the Viet
Minh base and personnel for the operation were that we would have
local native support and excellent terrain cover.67

Thus, with Helliwell on board, Patti asked to parachute a small team
headed by a senior American offif cer into Viet Minh territory, and Ho
agreed.68 In presenting his plan for the Deer Team, Patti was honest about
the political orientation of the Viet Minh, admitting that they were “Marxist”
but adding that their “immediate concern was to fif ght the Japanese.”

Although the bloody battle for Okinawa had concluded with an American
victory by the end of June, the specter of the invasion of the Japanese home
islands still loomed large on the horizon. World War II seemed far from over.
The offensive against the Japanese in southern China, carbonado, was still in
the planning stages, and thus ffighting the Japanese in Indochina, or at least
preventing them from reinforcing the units in southern China during carbo-
nado, seemed imperative. Therefore, regardless of his initial inclination to
work with the French, Thomas agreed to Patti’s plan to utilize Ho’s men.
Still harboring doubts however, “Thomas decided to make a personal recon-
naissance of the situation before committing his team to Vietnamese or
French participation.”69

During the last few days before Thomas’s entry into northern Vietnam,
Défourneaux exchanged a series of messages with headquarters at Poseh. Al-
though Défourneaux’s contacts among the French community could produce
only limited information regarding the Viet Minh, he had discovered enough
by July 13 to recognize the potential importance of the Viet Minh and to be
frustrated by his own lack of knowledge on this group. He wired Poseh:
“Have possibility of contacting Chief Viet Minh. . . . I am working on angles
to contact Viet Minh but need more info. Was left in dark for Pete’s sake tell

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 193

me something.”70 The response to his message alleviated some of his anxiety
but indicated a serious lack of communication among OSS channels: “We
have no info on Viet-Minh. You were not left in dark. We gave you all info we
have.” In his July 15 transmission to Poseh, Défourneaux requested his
“views about F.I.C.” be sent to Kunming.71 While in Ching-hsi, the French
consul told Défourneaux that Ho was a communist, “Moscow trained,” and
“ruthless, clever and very dangerous.”72 Although many different people
were talking about the Viet Minh, there is no indication that Défourneaux’s
message was passed on to Thomas, who was due to jump into Indochina the
next day.

On July 16 Thomas parachuted into the vicinity of the village of Tan Trao
(Kim Lung) with two American members of his team, Prunier and Zielski.
Three French envoys also accompanied him—an offficer, Lieutenant Mont-
fort, and two “representatives” of the French army, Sergeant Logos, a
French Eurasian, and Sergeant Phac, a Vietnamese. Of the men, only Zielski
had jumped before;73 however, all of them reached the ground without in-
jury. To the amusement of the Vietnamese, Thomas, Zielski, and Montfort
did sustain minor bruises to their egos: All three landed in trees. The cadre
who had been waiting for their arrival joked that “perhaps in America there
was not a kind of tree which is as big as this Banyan tree here.”74

The Viet Minh “welcoming committee” helped the men to the ground.
“Everybody was real excited,” Thomas reminisced. “We were glad to be on
the ground all safe and sound.”75 Thomas then received a “welcoming sa-
lute” from what he estimated to be approximately 200 men.76 The Viet Minh
were armed with “French riffles, a few Brens, a few tommies, a few carbines,
and a few stens,” which made up, in Thomas’s estimation “a very impressive
reception committee.”77 In addition, Viet Minh veteran Vu Dinh Huynh re-
called Thomas being “fflabbergasted” when the Viet Minh returned to him “a
wad of dollars that had fallen out during the parachute jump.” “They were
literally stunned,” writes Vu Dinh Huynh. “All the more so because they
knew that this restitution wasn’t the work of primitive savages who knew
nothing about the price of things, but from Resistance forces schooled in a
number of languages and thus perfectly aware of the value of what had fal-
len from the sky.”78 Once on the ground, Thomas was asked to give a brief
“welcome speech” consisting of a few “fflowery sentences.” He remembered
the substance of it as: “Well, we’re all together, ffighting the war against the
Japanese.”79 Thomas met Tan and Phelan, who conducted the men to their
“new home,” which had been especially prepared for the arrival of the
Americans. Thomas wrote:

194 CHAPTER SEVEN

We ffirst went under the archway of bamboo over which was a sign
“Welcome to our American Friends.” We then met Mr. Hoo, [sic] the
Party Leader, who gave us a cordial welcome. They had killed a cow in
our honor and gave us a case of Hanoi beer captured after a raid on a
Jap convoy. Had a nice sleep in our comfortable bamboo hut—situated
in the woods on a hill.80

Over the next two weeks Thomas toured the surrounding area while wait-
ing for the remainder of the Deer Team to be dropped in. His diary is replete
with compliments of Viet Minh hospitality. At each village he was met with
tea and food, speeches and songs.81 Although Thomas was unaware of the
famine throughout Tonkin in 1945, the generosity of the villagers in provid-
ing him with such an abundance of food speaks in part to the peasants’ es-
teem for the Americans but also to the ability of the Viet Minh to induce the
people to part with their precious provisions.

Whereas the Americans were treated “royally,” the French accompanying
Thomas’s mission were another matter. Although Thomas evidently felt
comfortable with the French, prior to his jump he had received confflicting
recommendations regarding the role of the French on the Deer Team. Patti
had advised Thomas not to take Frenchmen with him into Indochina. In
fact, Patti “cautioned” both Davis and Thomas “that the area was under
Viet Minh control and French personnel would be unwelcome.”82 Fenn and
GBT agent Simon Yu also warned against the dangers of including French-
men in an American mission into Indochina. Before leaving Poseh, Thomas
had asked Yu about the situation in Indochina. Yu had advised Thomas that
to go into Tonkin with any Frenchmen “would be a disaster, that the Viet
Minh hated the French, [and] had absolutely no use for them.”83 Yu then re-
ported his exchange with Thomas to Fenn at GBT headquarters, adding that
“[a] French friend of his was actually in on the deal.” Fenn next wired the
information to Tan, stating that “although Thomas seemed okay, his team
were pro-French and working with pro-French Annamites, and if Ho found
we were co-operating with such, he would write us [GBT] off.” Moreover,
Fenn also advised Tan that if Thomas did arrive with Frenchmen, Tan
should “be sure and have this Frenchman and any others arrested if only for
their own safety.”84

The situation was undoubtedly a confusing one for Thomas, who had be-
come friends with many of the French personnel with whom he worked. One
of them, the secretary of the French Consulate, reported that Thomas “was
strongly shaken” by what he heard. He conffided to the secretary that “the

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 195

local authorities had repeated to him many times that if he tried to penetrate
Indochina together with Frenchmen, the whole Indochina population would
ffight him.”85 But, of course, many of Thomas’s French friends offered an-
other view. As Patti recalled, “Thomas was being counseled by the French in
the fif eld that only they could be trusted to fif ght the Japanese, that the
‘Annamite’ would only cache any arms supplied them for a confrontation
with the French.”86 Given such confflicting advice, Thomas can hardly be
blamed for compromising and taking at least one man—disguised as an
American—whom he knew and trusted, and who knew the territory, with
him into the unknown jungles of Indochina.87 Thomas clarifif ed:

I made the decision to have a French offif cer named Montfort parachute
in with us, along with two of his Annamite soldiers. . . . The purpose of
bringing Montfort was to see whether any Frenchman would be
welcome. The French didn’t believe they couldn’t go in. They wanted to
get in there in the worst way. They wanted the colony back. So they
wanted to go in with us. The French were concerned that Montfort and
these other two might be shot at when they were parachuting down if
they looked like French soldiers. So they wore American helmets. . . .
But we weren’t trying to deceive Ho. . . . The only thing we were trying
to do was prevent him and Phac and Logos from being killed when they
came down from that airplane.88

When Thomas arrived with the three “French” in tow, they were immedi-
ately recognized. As Thomas pointed out, Phac and Logos were “Annamite
soldiers” who clearly originated in the French colonial army, and Montfort
did not speak any English.89 Furthermore, their real identities were evidently
exposed “almost immediately” after landing. Montfort was recognized by
one of the Viet Minh cadres, a man who had served under him in the French
colonial army, and Phac was identiffied first as pro-French and then as “a
member of the pro-Chinese nationalist party, the VNQDD.”90 Thus, as
Thomas, Prunier, and Zielski were being escorted through the bamboo arch-
way, the French were being “rounded up” by the Viet Minh. Tan stepped in
to help the situation. Looking back, Fenn deduced that it was only because
of “Tan’s amelioration” that the French were “treated amicably.”91

Back in Kunming, Patti also had to deal with the results of the French in-
clusion in Thomas’s jump.92 On the morning of July 17 an M.5 offficer visited
Patti’s offif ce to announce that Lieutenant Montfort and Major Thomas had
been captured by the Viet Minh. Patti, who had already been informed that

196 CHAPTER SEVEN

the jump had been successful, tried to reassure the M.5 offficer that all was
well. It was then that the Frenchman revealed “with some embarrassment”
that Montfort, Logos, and Phac were actually M.5 agents on a “special mis-
sion” to make contact with Ho Chi Minh.93 Furthermore, the offficer con-
ceded to Patti, Montfort was “camoufflaged as an American offficer.” Con-
cerned for their safety, the French offif cer made clear to Patti that M.5
expected the OSS to “guarantee their safe return to French control with the
least practicable delay.”94

Although Thomas knew nothing of Patti’s conversation in Kunming, he
would have certainly concurred with its conclusion. In his brief wire to Davis
at the Poseh headquarters on July 17, Thomas noted: “May have to eliminate
French.”95 The next day he added: “After conference with Mr. Hoe [sic]
Party Chief, imperative all rpt [repeat] all French and Annamese [from]
Poseh be eliminated. Am returning Montfort, Phac and Logos soonest as L-5
strip almost completed.”96 Fenn was probably correct in his summation of
the situation. He concluded: “Thomas soon weighed up the odds and de-
cided to work with Ho rather than the French.”97 The facts of the matter
must have seemed simple in the jungles of Tonkin: All of the Americans with
the Viet Minh were treated as honored guests, and the Viet Minh cadre cer-
tainly seemed ready, willing, and able to participate in any mission against
the Japanese in which the Allies wished to involve them. The French, how-
ever, were obviously unwelcome.

Although his decision to return Montfort, Logos, and Phac made perfect
sense to Thomas on the ground in Vietnam, his dispatch caused a fflurry of
wires between Davis in Poseh and Wampler in Kunming. Davis was very
concerned about Thomas’s apparent rejection of the French, although he
admitted that because of his location Thomas was the “best qualiffied” to
decide on their use in conjunction with the Deer Team. He assailed
Thomas with questions about the veracity of reports of Viet Minh actions
against the Japanese and of their claims to want arms only to ffight that
enemy. He also made his opinion regarding the French abundantly clear,
stating bluntly: “I believe that the best Jap fif ghters would be the French
here.” He advised Thomas:

Consider that French will be bitterly disappointed if they are eliminated.
Consider the opinions and advice of Montfort. The French are most
ffirmly convinced that we will not fif ght any Japs if we use local Vietminh
personnel. They are convinced that if we tell them that we are there to
ffight Japs[,] that we are using French because we have trained them and

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 197

know they are good fif ghters[,] that we will get cooperation from them
and that you will be treated as the big chief.98

Davis further questioned Thomas’s acceptance of the situation, asking:
“Are people there exaggerating on importance of local target and length of
time to walk to original area for selffish reasons?” Thomas had asserted in his
July 17 wire that

plenty [of] well trained men here. Recommend new target to wit Thai
Nguyen, Cao Bang Road. Now more important. Send rest of Americans
soonest. When ready notify us and we will send weather. Send all arms
and 1/3 demolitions. Set up training area here and permanent base and
new dz [drop zone] near Chow Hu. Am staying here until hear from you
on above. Would take 20 days to walk from here to our original advance
base.99

Contrary to Thomas’s request, Davis told Wampler that instead of send-
ing the rest of the Deer Team right away, he was in fact suspending their de-
parture for the immediate future. Moreover, Davis ordered Thomas to re-
main objective about both the French and the Vietnamese:

I direct that you keep an open mind until a decision is reached. Show the
local people that you have not yet made a decision. You are the big
American chief[,] impartial[,] wholly interested in ffighting Japs. If you
want to fif ght Japs and can do a good job perhaps can send another team
to them. You have unlimited facilities available to you. You are the
chosen representative of a huge and powerful nation. Treat these local
chiefs with kindness but do not bow to them. After considering all angles
send to me your considered opinions, recommendations and reasons for
eliminating French and changing mission.100

Firmly convinced that working with the French was the best option,
Davis advised Thomas to begin walking to the “original advance base” near
Lang Son, optimistically predicting that “the French knowing the country
and people will be of help and perhaps it will prove that in the area [in]
which he is walking the French main body will be acceptable.” Davis noti-
fif ed Wampler that “Thomas request for arms and Americans was his hasty
decision to operate on new target without French.” Nonetheless, Wampler
remained more open-minded to the use of the Viet Minh instead of the

198 CHAPTER SEVEN

French, wiring Davis: “If you and Thomas decide that Vietminh Annamites
are OK, then you have clearance from this headquarters to go ahead and use
them.” In fact, Wampler suggested that the Viet Minh might be able to prove
their willingness to ffight the Japanese by following American direction and
attacking the original target: the Hanoi–Lang Son railroad.101 Although he
was willing to consider the usefulness of assaulting the Thai Nguyen–Cao
Bang road at some later date, Wampler reiterated that the original target was
still the ffirst priority because of “overall Theater directive.” Wampler con-
curred with Thomas, however, that Montfort, Logos, and Phac should be
withdrawn from the mission. He added that he expected to receive “details
of his [Thomas’s] reasons” and a full report of his “extended conferences”
with Ho Chi Minh.102

Although the issue of the three “Frenchmen” was settled,103 they would re-
main in the Viet Bac for two weeks following the drop. It was apparent from
the beginning that Montfort had to leave, but the status of Phac and Logos
was less clear. Ho offered to allow both men to remain and to join the Viet
Minh, Thomas remembered. However, Ho expressed serious doubt that the
French would “release them.” “That was true,” concluded Thomas, “the
French wouldn’t.”104 This certainly may have been the case. Assuming that
the men were part of an M.5 “secret mission,” Montfort might have been reluc-
tant to excuse the two men from duty. However, given the situation, it seems
unlikely that a French prohibition was the reason they declined to join Ho’s
group. Montfort was the only Frenchman in an area controlled by the Viet
Minh, inside Japanese-held territory, from which he was being involuntarily
exiled, at that. Should Phac or Logos have chosen to join the Viet Minh and
stay behind with them, there is little Montfort could have done to prevent it.

Patti reported that Phac “told his Vietnamese interrogators that he had
accompanied Montfort in the hope that the Viet Minh would let him stay
and ffight the Japanese. They evidently had a different interpretation,” con-
cluded Patti, “and ‘Sergeant’ or ‘Lieutenant’ Phac was kept under close ob-
servation until his departure.”105 Phac certainly was no ordinary colonial
foot soldier. According to Sainteny, Phac was a lieutenant in the French
army and had left Indochina with Alessandri following the Japanese coup.
After arriving in Yunnan, Phac renewed his contacts with several Viet-
namese nationalists in Kunming. Just prior to his mission with Montfort,
Phac had approached Sainteny about his willingness to meet with Nguyen
Tuong Tam, a Vietnamese author and nationalist who had originally joined
the Dai Viet Party at its inception in 1939 but who by 1945 was an important
member of the VNQDD. Although Sainteny attached very little importance

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 199

to this, he agreed to the meeting and left Phac free to make the necessary ar-
rangements.106 In view of Phac’s apparent determination to gain recognition
for the VNQDD at M.5, his sincerity in wishing to join Ho’s forces must be
questioned. Given the abundance of Viet Minh cadres in Kunming, the Viet
Minh may have been well aware of Phac’s maneuvering. And hence, they
may also have been unwilling to have in their midst the apparently pro-
French, pro-Chinese Phac.

Sergeant Logos was a bit less mysterious. During his two weeks in camp
waiting to depart, Logos became friends with one of the Americans who had
landed with him, Henry Prunier. Born in 1921 to a family of Franco-
American descent, Prunier grew up in Massachusetts, attending ffirst a Cath-
olic prep school and then a small Catholic college in Worcester. Although he
enlisted in the army in August 1942, he remained in school until called to ac-
tive duty in June 1943. After basic training, Prunier was assigned to a For-
eign Area (Far East) and “Annamese” language-studies program at the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley. He remained in this army specialized training
program from December 1943 until September 1944. While he was at Berke-
ley, the OSS recruited Prunier. In late 1944 he was sent to Washington for
special testing and then on for additional OSS training. In March 1945 he
landed in Kunming and in May was assigned to the Deer Team.107

Although Prunier studied Vietnamese for only nine months, the training
was intensive, and he was able to use his language skills for very basic com-
munication with the Vietnamese troops.108 Thus, Prunier had two advan-
tages in Tonkin: He could speak and understand simple Vietnamese, and
having grown up in a French-speaking household, he spoke French ffluently.
After their July 16 jump into Kim Lung, Prunier and Logos became “quite
friendly.” Prunier’s familiarity with Vietnamese and French allowed the two
men to have many “interesting talks” about Vietnam, the war, and the
Americans. Logos wondered, Prunier recalled, “why we Americans were in-
volved with this rebel group called Vietminh.” Prunier assured Logos that
the Deer Team mission was “not political since we were only soldiers and
that our goal was the same as the Vietminh to oust the Japanese.”109

Prunier was sorry to see Logos depart, but he had little say in the matter.
Ho had made his position on Montfort clear. Thomas had decided that his
mission would be facilitated by the removal of the French, and after several
days his headquarters had concurred.110 To demonstrate his group’s legiti-
macy and control of the area, Ho told Thomas, “The French think we are
bandits. But to show you we’re not, we will escort Montfort and the others
back to the border.”111 On July 31, Montfort, Phac, and Logos left to join a

200 CHAPTER SEVEN

group of twenty French refugees, “collected under the auspices of AGAS,” at
Tam Dao, a nearby resort village sixteen miles southwest of Thai Nguyen
and twenty-eight miles northwest of Hanoi.112

The refugees had been waiting for AGAS to relocate them to China since
the Viet Minh attack on July 16, 1945,113 when a group of Viet Minh had at-
tacked the Japanese garrison at Tam Dao, a tiny hill station manned by per-
haps as few as nine Japanese soldiers. Outnumbered, the Japanese were
routed, losing seven men in the fif ght.114 Nguyen Huu Mui, a member of the
Viet Minh who also worked with the Deer Team, was largely responsible for
the decision to attack Tam Dao. Having recently been exposed to the Japa-
nese for his revolutionary work in Vinh Yen, Nguyen Huu Mui had ffled to-
ward the hill station, where he believed he would have “the chance to go to
fif ght the Japanese.” Once there, he discovered that many of his comrades
were reluctant to begin the ffight because the Japanese “had all the modern
weapons, and we had only riffles and each one had only ten bullets.” Nguyen
Huu Mui rationalized that since his cover was now blown, theirs would soon
be as well, and that “if we didn’t fif ght against them, they would kill us.” The
small band called upon a nearby “platoon in the name of Hoang Van Thai”
for help, and the joint force organized their troops, cut the telephone lines,
felled trees to block the road, and besieged the garrison.115

Although an insignifif cant contribution to the defeat of the Japanese, the
attack on Tam Dao proved the Viet Minh willingness to engage the enemy
when the battle seemed likely to end in their favor—one of the principle ten-
ets of guerrilla warfare.116 Donald Lancaster, a journalist in Vietnam during
the war, wrote that the Viet Minh “displayed marked reluctance to incur cas-
ualties or to invite reprisals by attacking the Japanese and confif ned their
contribution towards the victory to an attack on the hill station of Tam
Dao.”117 However, even Sainteny acknowledged the psychological benefif ts
to the Vietnamese of this small Viet Minh victory,118 and the Japanese found
it suffficiently annoying that they wired Tokyo that “the activities of the
League are now becoming more and more fflagrant. Just a few days ago,
there was a large-scale surprise attack at Tam Dao by a band of persons con-
nected with the movement.”119

The Tam Dao attack also revealed the growing political awareness of the
Viet Minh and the fact that they were not indiscriminately anti-French.
After defeating the weak garrison, the Viet Minh liberated the Japanese “ci-
vilian concentration camp” at Tam Dao.120 Nguyen Kim Hung recalled that
their intention in attacking Tam Dao “was just to pound the Japanese and
take away the weapons,” but in doing so they also liberated the French

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 201

prisoners. The Viet Minh were willing to help “the progressive French,”
whom Tran Trong Trung remembered as “mostly teachers and students
from a school in Hanoi.”121 “Although the living condition of the local peo-
ple was very low, and we experienced a lot of hardships and diffficulties,”
Tran Trong Trung recalled, “Ho Chi Minh instructed us to do everything
possible to improve the living conditions of these French people.”122

Maurice and Yvonne Bernard, French professors residing at Tam Dao and
among those “cared for” by the Viet Minh, provided a vivid account of the
attack on Tam Dao and described in fulsome language their stay with the
Viet Minh. In an open letter to their “friends in Hanoi,” they attempted to
correct what they believed were serious misimpressions of the Viet Minh,
stating boldly: “The Viet Minh are not pirates and they do not hate the
French; they are only men who detest fascism and wish to deliver their coun-
try from Japanese slavery.”123 Given the Viet Minh attitude toward the
French, they could easily have left the colons open to possible Japanese re-
prisals after their victory. Yet “the Viet Minh helped French men, women,
and children to escape to safety, caring for them until they could be picked
up by Allied planes and evacuated to China,” concluded noted historian
Ellen Hammer.124

That the Viet Minh “liberated” the French civilians from the Japanese
and turned them over to the Americans indicates that in early July 1945 the
Viet Minh sought to demonstrate that they were not unilaterally anti-French
and recognized that the path to American approval was to fif ght only their
Japanese enemy while treating the French humanely. Although the victory at
Tam Dao was not acknowledged by the American government, it was signif-
icant for the men on the ground at the time, especially Frank Tan, Dan Phe-
lan, and Allison Thomas. It should be recognized, however, that with this
maneuver the Viet Minh also succeeded in making more colons exiles from
Vietnam. Although AGAS had arranged to ffly out the French women and
children, Lieutenant Montfort, accompanied by both Phac and Logos, led
the remaining group of refugees from Tam Dao to the border and into China.
On the day of their departure Thomas recorded in his diary, “Too bad they
had to be sent away but these people dislike the French almost as much as
they dislike the Japs.”125

By his own admission, when he arrived at Kim Lung Thomas knew very
little about either French Indochina or the Viet Minh. However, as is evident,
he quickly discovered their attitude toward the French. The hospitality of
the Viet Minh and his conversations with Tan and Phelan further convinced
Thomas of the viability of joint OSS–Viet Minh actions, without the French.

202 CHAPTER SEVEN

During his stay with the Viet Minh, Thomas and Ho Chi Minh talked fre-
quently—about politics, about their military mission, and about the Viet-
namese “grievances” against the French. Ho explained to Thomas that he
“personally like[d] many French,” but “most of his soldier’s [sic] don’t.”126
As with Shaw, Fenn, Tan, and Phelan, Ho described the worst of French be-
havior to Thomas: The French had a monopoly on salt and alcohol and
“forced the people to buy opium” and to pay heavy taxes; they had “shot
and gassed many political prisoners”; they had built more “prisons than
schools”; and they had deprived the Vietnamese of freedoms considered
basic in American life: freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly.
However, even long after the war, Thomas remained adamant that at the
time he did not know Ho was a communist:

It was obvious he was well read and well educated. But bear in mind, I
didn’t know he was a Communist. I had no idea he spoke Russian, I had
no idea he’d been to Russia. . . . I did feel he was very sincere. . . . He
seemed like a man of iron determination. . . . Also bear in mind that I
wasn’t on a political mission. It was purely military. I was a little bit
suspicious of Ho, because his troops used the clenched-ffist salute. But I
talked to Dan Phelan and Frankie Tan about it, and they both felt
strongly that he was not a doctrinaire Communist, that he was a true
patriot.127

Even though the relationship between the OSS and the GBT had strained
to the breaking point, on the ground Tan and Thomas, as well as the others,
got along well. Only days after Thomas’s arrival Tan wired Fenn in Kun-
ming: “Thomas is a great guy, already sold on the Vietminh and sending
wires to OSS that they should work only with Ho and not with the
French.”128 This in fact was true. Thomas questioned Ho directly about the
political orientation of the Viet Minh after his arrival and was assured that
the Viet Minh was composed of many different political parties. Ho added
that the Viet Minh “was working for the liberty and complete independence
of Indo-China from all foreign powers,” Thomas remembered, and that
“after liberty had been achieved they would worry about politics.”129 Ho
had carefully skirted the issue—not lying, not presenting the whole truth—
as had become a Viet Minh pattern.130 In the Deer Team’s fif rst offif cial report
to Kunming, written only one day after his arrival, Thomas stated fflatly:
“Forget the Communist Bogy. VML [Viet Minh League] is not Communist.
Stands for freedom and reforms from French harshness.”131

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 203

Convinced that Ho and the Viet Minh were strongly pro-American—Ho
told Thomas he would “welcome 10 million Americans”132—Thomas made a
series of recommendations for the Deer Team mission. He reported that Ho
allegedly had “3000 or more men under arms in Tonkin” and that he could
provide Thomas with as many of them as he needed. Ho recommended,
however, that Thomas use “not more than 100.” He added “many are par-
tially trained under a leader who was trained in guerilla warfare by the Navy
in China.”133 Thomas also forwarded Ho’s recommendation to change the
target for Deer Team operations to the Thai Nguyen–Cao Bang road, listing
the following reasons to make the change:

1. The airforce has disrupted the traffif c on Hanoi-Langson road.
2. It has lost its importance since Nanning was taken.
3. The Japs are in much greater force in that area.
4. The VML Party are not as strong or as well armed in that area.
5. The Japs are constantly using the Thai-Nguyen-Bac Kan [road]. More

so [than] Hanoi-Langson road.
6. Better area for training soldiers here.
7. The present area is completely controlled by the VML. No Japs

penetrate.
8. This area is becoming static and from here we can take our men after

they are trained and [move] south [to] operate on the RR to Lao-kay
and eventually on the RR line Hanoi-Saigon, which is much more
vital and important, or if necessary take our trained men and operate
on the Hanoi-Langson road.134

As had become his style, in his rationale Ho incorporated elements of the
truth (the Viet Minh were certainly strongest in the base area), items of
interest to the Americans (the potential for disrupting the key railroad in
Vietnam between Hanoi and Saigon), and points of particular beneffit to
him (the prospect of thoroughly training and equipping his soldiers in the
Viet Bac.) Ho’s rationale made sense to Thomas, who recommended to
Poseh and Kunming that the change in the Deer Team’s mission be made,
that a “fairly permanent base” be set up in Kim Lung for training, and that
the original target be postponed until the Deer Team had completed some
training. Tønnesson commented: “Rather surprisingly, Thomas con-
sented—with the approval of his superiors—to operate, temporarily, on the
strategically much less important communication line favoured by Ho Chi
Minh. Thomas thus postponed the mission he had been instructed to carry

204 CHAPTER SEVEN

out, which was an important ingredient in Carbonado.”135 Thomas may
have been inffluenced in making his decision by an intelligence report dated
July 8 on Japanese troop strength. The report placed 700 soldiers in Thai
Nguyen and 2,000 in Cao Bang, with an additional 2,500 troops at the mid-
way village of Bac Can—signifficant numbers for men hoping to fif ght the
Japanese.136

In addition, Thomas requested that the rest of the Deer and Cat teams,
including medical men, and arms and equipment be parachuted in as soon
as possible. He even sent a hand-drawn map depicting the best fflight route
and drop zone to avoid “Jap held towns.” Thomas also asked for a wide
range of miscellaneous equipment, including ten M-3s with silencers (“good
for Jap sentries & advance guards”); 100 mosquito nets; 100 “green fatigue
suits, small sizes, or camouflf aged jungle suits and mechanics’ caps (no khaki
clothes)”; fif ve sets of complete maps of Indochina, described as “essential”
for patrols and “as gifts to party and military chiefs who need maps badly”;
“plenty of picture magazines (Life), books, newspapers”; salt (“natives very
short of it”); and ten watches for “operational gifts to party and military
leaders.” Thomas recommended getting part of the needed equipment from
the French. He advised, “Retake all equipment issued to French, as we need
all of it (including my .45 I gave to Langlois).”137

Although Thomas did not know it, the American equipment issued to
those Frenchmen intended for use with the Deer Team on June 11 had al-
ready been recalled. Lieutenant Défourneaux had been the unlucky bearer
of this news only a few days before Thomas made his suggestion. Unfortu-
nately for Défourneaux, he had already made serious enemies among the
French in southern China. While working with and talking to the French
soldiers, he had discovered that they “planned to return to their colony, not
so much to fif ght the Japanese as to reestablish their control over that part of
the world which they considered theirs.” Feeling it his duty, Défourneaux re-
ported the information to his superiors. He believed the information stopped
there. However, shortly thereafter he was directed to instruct the French to
return the American equipment issued to them. He recalled the intensely un-
comfortable situation:

When a circle of armed French offif cers slowly closed around me and
pushed me against the wall, I knew that I was in a very precarious
situation. I tried to tell them that I had nothing to do with the decision,
but they were upset by the fact that I had ratted on them earlier. They
really believed that only I could have told the U.S. Command that their

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 205

primary aim was the securing of their colony. . . . The fact that I was an
American offficer was immaterial. To them I was a Frenchman and I was
a traitor.

Although Défourneaux’s relations with the French were tense, he was disap-
pointed to receive Thomas’s news that the French must be excluded from the
Deer Team mission. Although suspicious of French motives, he felt no better
about the motives of the Viet Minh. In fact, Défourneaux was convinced that
neither side really wanted to ffight the Japanese. From his conversations with
the French, and even with some Chinese in the area, he had formed a nega-
tive opinion of the Viet Minh and felt that working with them would be a
mistake. As a junior offficer, however, he decided to keep his opinion to him-
self. He recalled:

I felt that we were making a mistake as big as that of the French. . . . I
felt that no one would be able to deal with the Vietminh successfully.
They would not keep their promises because their main goal was not to
chase the Japanese out of FIC, but to acquire as many weapons [as] they
could and attempt to control the Tonkin. They knew that sooner or later
the Japanese would leave Indochina, so why should [they] risk their lives
for a forgone conclusion?138

Regardless of his personal feelings, Défourneaux and the men returned to
Poseh as ordered. There Davis informed him that he and the rest of the Deer
Team, as well as the Cat Team, would jump into Kim Lung on July 29. Davis
suggested that in light of the Viet Minh attitude toward the French, as dem-
onstrated by the recall of Montfort, he might want to consider assuming an
alias, pointing out that with the French name “Défourneaux” he might expe-
rience the same sort of diffif culties. With that, Défourneaux became Ray-
mond Douglass. The team spent the next day preparing the gear that was to
be dropped in with them. After having great diffif culty fif nding the drop zone,
the Deer and Cat teams jumped into what were to them the unknown jungles
of northern Vietnam.

Ho, who was ill, could not be at the drop zone to greet the men, yet he still
managed to benefif t from the fact of their arrival. Lying on his sickbed, Ho
told the local tribesmen to go to the clearing and wait for Americans to “fall
from the sky.” “We were very doubtful,” one of the tribesmen recalled, “but
we had faith in Uncle Ho, so we went. We waited most of the day and noth-
ing happened. And then we looked up and there was an airplane, and from

206 CHAPTER SEVEN

the airplane men came flf oating down. Everyone had to say that Uncle Ho
was a genius. How could he have known such a thing would happen?”139
Ho, of course, knew full well that the drop was planned. Thomas had told
him of their planned arrival, and Viet Minh cadres had helped set up the
drop zone and a visual sign (a white T formation on the ground) to guide the
pilot. Perceptions, however, were everything, and once again Ho proved he
was master of the moment.

As the Deer Team members got to their feet, they were greeted by Tan,
Phelan, Zielski, and “Mr. Van,” the alias of the moment for Vo Nguyen Giap.
All members of the team landed without injury, and the Americans were es-
corted once again under the bamboo archway proclaiming “Welcome to Our
American Friends.” The team was not reunited with Thomas and Prunier
until the following night; the two Americans were away on a reconnaissance
mission of the Japanese fort at Cho Chu, which Thomas planned to attack
but the war ended before he got the opportunity to do so.140 Although won-
dering at the absence of their leader, the men were simply relieved to have fif -
nally landed in the place they were supposed to be, and they settled in for the
night. Now that the Deer Team was “ffinally in place, ready and eager to do
what it was created to do,” Défourneaux found himself thinking about “our
wasted efforts, our lack of direction and leadership.”141

Although Défourneaux and others on the team harbored some resentment
at what they perceived to be a lack of leadership, Thomas was largely imper-
vious to the internal dissension. Over the next few days the men prepared to
begin their training mission, stowing their supplies, selecting sites for their
training ground and living quarters, and brieffly touring the surrounding vil-
lages, in which the Americans were always warmly received. As the Deer
Team settled into the area, others were leaving. Captain Holland’s Cat Team
left on July 31 to establish a base in another area. And Tan departed Indo-
china on an L-5 sent to retrieve him.

Tan had put off leaving as long as he could, ignoring Gordon’s numerous
summons to return to Kunming. However, with the Deer Team in place, the
Cat Team beginning its mission, and Phelan remaining to work for AGAS,
Tan no longer had a reason to stay in Indochina. Moreover, Tan and Ho
had already “set up an intelligence network of native agents that amply re-
placed the French net lost by the Japanese coup.” Tan was sad to leave be-
hind the men he had come to regard as friends in Tonkin, speciffically Ho Chi
Minh. Ho also regretted Tan’s leaving. Tan remembered Ho’s ffinal comment
to him: “You will always have ways to get out to the world and so will the

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 207

French. But now that our association has ended, I won’t have.”142 At the
time, however, Tan did not fully appreciate the diffficulties Ho Chi Minh
would soon face. For although he looked fondly on Ho and the Viet Minh
with whom he had worked, he was delighted to see his friends at GBT head-
quarters again.

Blissfully unaware of the tension between Gordon and Fenn and of
Gordon’s displeasure with his rendezvous with the Viet Minh, Tan immedi-
ately began to sing the praises of Ho and the Viet Minh. Gordon was not at
the GBT compound when Tan arrived and Fenn warned him to “lay off this
eulogy [for Ho] when they did meet.” Fenn described Tan’s enthusiasm for
Ho as “irrepressible,” and Tan was not anxious to mute his fervor for
Gordon’s beneffit. “Laurie will have to face the facts,” stated Tan. “The
French in Indochina are as good as ffinished. When the war ends the Viet-
minh will certainly take over. And meanwhile Ho can do a lot to help us ffin-
ish it!” Over the next months Tan would speak often about Ho Chi Minh and
the Vietnamese desire for independence, and perhaps that is exactly what
Ho counted on. In a letter to Fenn, written just before Tan’s return to Kun-
ming, Ho explained: “I want to write you a long, long letter to thank you for
your friendship. Unfortunately I can’t write much, because I am in bad
health just now (not very sick, don’t worry!). What I want to say, Mr. Tan
will say it for me.”143 Although Tan did have much to say, in August 1945
there were few to listen.

As the last month of the war began, the Americans in Vietnam, unaware
that Japan’s defeat was imminent, settled into life with the Viet Minh. On
August 1, the Americans witnessed the opening ceremony for the Viet Minh’s
newly built “communal house,” complete with speeches and political skits,
including one that depicted how the “Japs were wrecking their country” and
another that portrayed the successful rescue of an American pilot.144 During
the team’s ffirst days in camp, they met many of the Viet Minh and a few vil-
lagers from the surrounding area. One person, however, was noticeably ab-
sent: Mr. Ho. On the day the team landed, Giap apologized for Ho’s absence,
telling the new Americans that the “Chief” of his group was ill. By August 3,
Ho still had not emerged. Several of the team members, including Défour-
neaux and Paul Hoagland, decided to go into the nearby village to see Ho
and to see if he needed help. Having been warned by the French about this
“ruthless” and “dangerous” man, Défourneaux was surprised at Ho’s ap-
pearance. Instead of a monster, Défourneaux discovered what seemed to be
a frail old man hovering near death:

208 CHAPTER SEVEN

In the darkest corner of the room lay a pile of bones covered with yellow,
dry skin. A pair of glassy eyes stared at us. The man was shaking like a
leaf and obviously running a high fever. When my eyes had become
accustomed to the darkness, I noticed the long scraggly goatee hanging
from a pointed chin. . . . Hoagland took a quick look and said, “This
man doesn’t have long for this world.”145

But Paul Hoagland was prepared.
Hoagland, born in Romulus, New York, had trained as a nurse at Willard

State Hospital before World War II began. He had also had several years ex-
perience as a medic aboard the Swedish ship The Gripsholm.146 Hoagland
was recruited into the OSS in 1942 and reported for duty with the Deer Team
in May 1944. After brieffly examining Ho, Hoagland speculated that he was
suffering from malaria, dengue fever, dysentery, or a combination of all
three. He gave Ho quinine, sulfa drugs, and “other medicines.” Over the
next few days Hoagland “looked after him periodically.”147 Allison Thomas
later commented that although Ho was “very sick,” he was not sure that Ho
“would have died without us.”148 Within ten days, Ho had more or less re-
covered and was again up and about camp.149

In addition to tending to Ho, Hoagland, who spoke French ffluently, also
trained Trieu Duc Quang as a medic. As well as becoming the “medical team
for the company of Vietnam-USA soldiers,” Quang and Hoagland also be-
came good friends. At Hoagland’s request to try some local cuisine, which
Ho had told the cadre not to feed the Americans, the two medics “snuck out
to a village at the foot of the hill to cook.” “The fif rst time we got away
clean,” reminisced Quang, “but the second time we were in a hurry and the
rice was not well done. So we got this diarrhea.”150

The camaraderie that developed between Quang and Hoagland was not
unique to them. Tran Trong Trung, who was twenty-two years old, and
Henry (Hank) Prunier, twenty-one, also built a friendship, communicating
in French and Prunier’s rudimentary Vietnamese. Trung had many ques-
tions for Prunier, including asking him who Roosevelt was, and the two
spent much time talking. Trung taught Prunier “to sing the ballad of march-
ing soldiers,” which later became the national anthem of Vietnam, which no
doubt endeared the young American to many more of the Vietnamese in
camp.151

For the fif rst six days in August, the Vietnamese and the Americans
worked together building the training camp. While the Vietnamese concen-
trated on the construction of “buildings”—usually no more than four walls,

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 209

a thatched roof, and a flf oor—the Americans focused on the interiors of their
new home, cobbling together bunks, tables, and partitions. Within a week’s
time the training camp consisted of three barracks for the Vietnamese sol-
diers, one barracks for the OSS men, an assembly hall, a kitchen, a supply
warehouse, an inffirmary and radio “headquarters,” a 150-yard shooting
range, and an open training area. At the end of the training ffield stood a tall
tree that was used as a flf agpole to display the Viet Minh fflag: a gold star cen-
tered upon a red background. The young Vietnamese men who came for
military training (by the Americans) and political training (by the Viet
Minh) were glad to be there. Défourneaux remembered they seemed happy
simply to “be together without restraint, to talk among themselves and to
learn from each other.”152 From the group of 110 assembled recruits, their
ffield commander Dam Quang Trung153 and the Deer Team chose 40 of the
“most promising” young men to begin training immediately.154 The eager
recruits who would be working with the Deer Team were offif cially christened
by Ho Chi Minh the Bo Doi Viet-My, the “Vietnamese-American Force.”155

Except for William Zielski, who was kept busy with radio communica-
tions to and from Poseh and Kunming, all of the members of the Deer Team
participated in the training of the Vietnamese. Thomas had brought with
him U.S. Army ffield manuals, and instruction in American drill and in the
use of American weapons began in earnest on August 9—three days after the
dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Unaware of the earth-
shattering events that were taking place, the Deer Team proceeded to train
this select group of Viet Minh recruits in preparation for guerrilla warfare
against the Japanese.

The young recruits were trained to use M-1 carbines, Thompson subma-
chine guns, Springffield riflf es, bazookas, light machine guns, and Bren guns.
Their instruction included triangulation, fif ring practice, and fif eld cleaning
of the weapons. The men were also instructed in the use of mortars and gre-
nades. Drill was relatively intensive between August 9 and 15, beginning at
5:30 am and ending at 5:00 pm. On August 10 they received an additional sup-
ply drop of weapons and ammunition to continue the training of the recruits.
Certainly Vo Nguyen Giap was delighted with the additional materiel. The
equipment parachuted into the Viet Bac in the Deer Team’s three supply
drops, combined with those “small arms crafted by the Viet Minh in their
crude jungle weapons factories,” created an army “suffficiently equipped to
impress the people of the countryside.” Giap recalled: “To see our new com-
pany standing in neat rows and armed with new riffles and shining bayonets
fif lled us with jubilance and confif dence.” Giap’s biographer, Cecil Currey,

210 CHAPTER SEVEN

Sergeant Larry Vogt (standing far left) and Lieutenant René Défourneaux (standing
center) look on as members of the Viet Minh practice firing the M-1 carbine, August 16,
1945. National Archives and Records Administration.

added: “Giap made sure that his newly equipped units were seen by as many
as possible.”156

Both Thomas and Défourneaux were also impressed with the new units.
Both men commented in their diaries on the enthusiasm of the young Viet-
namese soldiers and on their rapid acquisition of most of the military
skills.157 Thomas and his second did not see eye-to-eye, however, on the va-
lidity of the mission as a whole. Whereas Thomas had recommended train-
ing the men at the base area and then, “once they were in the groove,” at-
tacking the Japanese at the more dangerous areas near Thai Nguyen and
Lang Son,158 Lieutenant Défourneaux disagreed with both the nature of the
training and the overall premise of training the Viet Minh. About the nature
of the training he wrote:

We were training recruits for conventional warfare while contemplating
guerrilla operations. The most important factor for a successful guerrilla
operation is the knowledge of the terrain. This was certainly not within
our range of expertise. The people we were training could operate

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 211

Major Allison Thomas looks on as Viet Minh soldiers practice grenade throwing on
August 17, 1945. National Archives and Records Administration.

throughout Indochina without fear of being identifif ed as other than
natives. In no way could we, Occidentals, convince local people to take
arms and resist an invading power. . . . All they needed from us were
weapons, and training to use these weapons.
Défourneaux was even more critical of the concept of training the Viet Minh,
whom he believed were communists, comparing their closed-ffist salute, an-
them, and behavior to that of French communists he had seen as a young
man growing up in eastern France:
It was diffficult for me to embrace the concept of giving military basic
training to a bunch of natives who, thanks to their individual wits, had
escaped the attentions of their Japanese colonial masters and managed
to survive. . . . If these men were to be organized in regular platoons,
companies, and battalion size units, although we were able to do it, we
had no business being involved in the building of an armed force for the
purpose of ffighting “the Japanese.”159

212 CHAPTER SEVEN

Although suspicious of their motivation, Défourneaux admitted that the
Viet Minh were good military students and even that Ho Chi Minh himself
was a “good conversationalist with a wide range of knowledge.” As with
most of his American guests, Ho spent at least part of his time discussing
French transgressions in Vietnam and the desire of the Vietnamese to attain
their freedom. He indicated to Défourneaux, as he had already to Thomas
and Phelan, that he would even accept a “transition period during which the
French would train and eventually turn over the responsibility of govern-
ment to elected Indochinese.”160

Thomas also recalled Ho mentioning a transition period of from fif ve to
ten years under French guidance. Even years after his mission in Vietnam,
Thomas called special attention to the wires that he had sent to the French
on Ho’s behalf almost immediately after his arrival in Kim Lung. On July 17,
Ho had asked Thomas to let the Americans in Kunming know that he was
willing to talk with a high-ranking French offif cer, such as General Sabat-
tier.161 Patti described this attempt as Ho’s seizing the “propitious moment,”
hoping that the French would be suffif ciently impressed with the American
presence in his camp that they might accord him a measure of respectabil-
ity.162 The Viet Minh ffive-point proposal asked that the French “observe in
the political future of French Indo-China” the following items:

1. A parliament will be elected by universal suffrage. It will be the
legislature for the country. A French governor will exercise the
functions of president until our independence is assured. This
president will choose a cabinet or a group of advisers accepted by the
parliament. The precise powers of all these organs can be delineated
in the future.

2. Independence will be given to this country in a minimum of fif ve years
and a maximum of ten.

3. The natural resources of the country will be returned to the
inhabitants after a just compensation of the present holders. France
will beneffit from economic privileges.

4. All the liberties proclaimed by the United Nations will be guaranteed
to Indo-Chinese.

5. The sale of opium is forbidden.163

As far as Patti could determine at the time, Ho’s message went unan-
swered by the French. David Marr wrote: “The French prepared a concilia-
tory, if noncommittal, response but chose not to transmit it via OSS channels,

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 213

apparently intending for Sainteny to present it personally to Ho.”164 But the
time for wartime conciliation was rapidly coming to a close. On August 6 the
assumptions on which our principals were operating were demolished by the
atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. At the Deer Team camp news of a
possible surrender arrived via Dan Phelan.

The reaction among the soldiers was mixed. Although the men were ex-
cited at the prospect of returning home, they were also disappointed that the
war might end before they had the opportunity to fif ght the Japanese directly.
In his diary, Lieutenant Défourneaux wrote on August 11: “We still hope for
some fif ght before it’s over!” Défourneaux reported that all of the Deer Team
members were “doing pretty well,” under the circumstances, except for Ser-
geant Vogt. Vogt was unhappy with his training mission and made clear to
the lieutenant that he “had volunteered to kill Japs, not to be a drill ser-
geant.”165 Thomas, however, was delighted with the news. In his August 15
diary entry, he wrote: “Wild hilarity to-day. 9 am heard by our radio that ne-
gotiations for fif nal surrender were almost ffinished.”166

The major’s happiness seemed to further underline his team’s disappoint-
ment. “Three months earlier,” clariffied Défourneaux, “all had wanted to
fif ght the Japanese, but now they felt that the Major was at fault for not hav-
ing given them the opportunity.” Overhearing Thomas rejoicing, the men
“resented his attitude as their opportunities for combat shrank.”167 This
very desire to ffight the Japanese was one of the attributes that the Vietnam-
ese admired. David Marr concluded: “The Vietnamese were fascinated by
these strangers who dropped from the sky with tons of western equipment,
maintained instant contact with great sources of power in the outside world,
often insisted on walking around bare-chested (completely unlike the sarto-
rially conscious French colonials), and showed every sign of wanting to kill
‘Japs’ the minute the training program was concluded.”168

Although a Japanese surrender had seemed likely as early as August 10,
neither the Americans nor the Vietnamese in the Viet Bac could be sure that
the war was indeed over, so training continued over the next four days. But
just as the Americans were winding up their war, the Viet Minh were laying
new plans. From August 13 to 15, the ICP, the leading political party of the
Viet Minh, held a “strategy conference” in the nearby village of Tan Trao.
As delegates from as far away as southern Annam, Laos, and Thailand
made their way to Tan Trao, there was excitement in the air as cadres who
had not seen each other in years became reacquainted and as freedom from
the Japanese invader seemed imminent. As a side note to the conference,
the delegates were taken to the training camp to witness the training of the

214 CHAPTER SEVEN

The leader of the Deer Team, Allison Thomas, stands center. He is flanked on his left by
Vo Nguyen Giap and on his right by Ho Chi Minh. Standing on Ho’s right is René
Défourneaux, the only member of the team to have serious concerns regarding the
political affiliation of the Viet Minh. Squatting in front of Défourneaux is team
photographer Alan Squires. Henry Prunier stands to Giap’s left, and farthest to Giap’s
left is Paul Hoagland, who provided medicine to the ailing Ho Chi Minh. Courtesy of
René Défourneaux.

Vietnamese-American Force. For most of the delegates, the members of the
Deer Team were the fif rst Americans they had ever seen.169 Although not
present initially at the conference because of illness, once again, Ho Chi
Minh had quietly exhibited his apparent power and connections to the
Americans.

Historian Stein Tønnesson cautioned against overemphasizing the im-
pact of the Deer Team’s presence at Tan Trao and pointed to the many fac-
tors already in play in bringing Ho Chi Minh to power in Vietnam—includ-
ing his considerable reputation among some of the delegates as the prolifif c
patriot Nguyen Ai Quoc, and the groundwork for the revolution that had al-
ready been laid by the party throughout the country. In Tønnesson’s view,
the American presence acted more to “boost the morale” than anything
else.170 However, all factors combined, and by the end of the conference,
Ho’s preference to launch “a general insurrection to seize power throughout
the country” had prevailed. The following day, on August 16, the Viet Minh

THE RELATIONSHIP DEEPENS: HO CHI MINH AND THE AMERICANS 215

leadership “convened a so-called National People’s Congress in Tan Trao”
and approved, among other things a new national fflag—a gold star upon a
red ffield—and a new national anthem.171

As the ffirst conference concluded on August 15 and as Thomas celebrated
the news of the “forthcoming” surrender, he and Giap decided to break
camp, go see Ho Chi Minh, and head toward Thai Nguyen. Just as Thomas
and Giap were leaving for Ho’s headquarters, Ho arrived in a sedan chair.
Ho reported that the Japanese had given a “complete unconditional surren-
der” at noon. Thomas issued the arms the Deer Team had been using in
training to the Viet Minh soldiers and informed both the trainees and the
Americans that they would probably “move out” the next day. That night
the Americans and the Vietnamese partied long into the night. “We shot our
trip fflares and our pyrotechnics before our troops,” Thomas recorded. “They
all shouted ‘Hip Hip Horray.’ We’re a bunch of happy boys to-night. [We]
Will be in pretty bad shape to leave to-morrow morning.”172 As the men
drank and celebrated, Trieu Duc Quang talked with the Americans he had
come to regard as friends. “Our American friends explained that peace has
come and now I don’t have to fif ght anymore,” he recalled. “But,” Trieu Duc
Quang quickly added, “the Japanese were still in my country, and our coun-
try was still at war so we had to keep on fif ghting.”173 As the Deer Team and
the Vietnamese-American Force celebrated the Allied victory, neither real-
ized how soon they would be in battle with the Japanese.

8

On to Hanoi

Although told by Davis in Poseh to “sit tight until further orders,”1 on Au-
gust 16, 1945, the Deer Team and the Vietnamese-American Force left Tan
Trao after a “send off before the National Delegates.”2 Both Thomas and Vo
Nguyen Giap were anxious to leave for Thai Nguyen. Giap remembered the
excitement that permeated the villages as news of the Japanese capitulation
spread. “I received the order from the Central Committee to prepare for
combat,” Giap explained. “On August 16, with the Liberation Army I left
Tan Trao to attack the Japanese at Thai Nguyen, which was the ffirst town to
be freed from the enemy’s hands on our march to Hanoi.”3 Initially Giap and
Thomas led the men as one unit over the diffif cult terrain between the train-
ing compound and their destination. However, on the morning of August 17
and again on August 18, the men split into two groups with Giap, Thomas,
and a platoon of Viet Minh soldiers taking one route and Défourneaux and
the remainder of the men—both American and Vietnamese (led by Dam
Quang Trung)—taking another, more direct route to Thai Nguyen. Although
the two groups were reunited at the end of each day, Thomas’s decision not
to stay with his men in order to accompany Giap only increased the hostility
of some members of the Deer Team.

The four-day journey to Thai Nguyen was diffficult; both Thomas’s and
Défourneaux’s men traversed steep mountain paths and forded swollen
streams, frequently walking in mud and rain. However, each night the men
were provided with clean, dry sleeping quarters and a warm meal. Dé-
fourneaux remembered that along the way the Americans were greeted by
curious villagers, some of whom offered the men beer and fruit.4 Although
Thomas’s route was also diffif cult, Viet Minh veteran Nguyen Chinh remi-
nisced about his pleasant conversations in French “as friends” with Thomas
and about the major’s smile and “no problem” response as he tolerated the
heavy rains and picked off the green leeches. Thomas’s experience was a bit

ON TO HANOI 217

different from the rest of the Deer Team’s, perhaps because of his alternate
route. As well as receiving provisions from the peasants, he was also greeted
with jubilant smiles, clapping hands, and shouts of “Hip, hip, hoorah!”
Local leaders came forward to welcome Thomas who in response reportedly
answered:

This is the fif rst time we arrive in your country, but still we have got very
good feelings and impressions about the scenic beauties and the people
of this land. I hope that we will have more chances to visit your country,
Vietnam, later on and it would be a great pleasure. But now, both you
and we have to carry out the common duty of ffighting against the
Japanese and let us cooperate to fulfif ll our tasks, and we hope that the
Vietnam-U.S. friendship will be long enduring.5

In addition to the welcome of the people, Thomas recalled seeing Viet
Minh fflags in the villages he passed through,6 which he concluded was a
clear indication of the strength of the Viet Minh in the area. “Those flf ags
didn’t just appear in a minute,” Thomas deduced. “They had to be made
sometime [earlier] and hidden away.”7 This was of course the case. The local
villagers had been well prepared for the arrival of the Americans. “Some of
our cadres, an advance team, had already talked to the people,” stated Tran
Trong Trung. “The duty of the local people was to keep secrets and organize
the security activities, maintaining a guard in the whole area, and to appear
to be very friendly to these people [the Americans].”8

Thomas could not help but be impressed by the warm reception that he
and the Viet Minh received on their journey. It was also on the arduous trek
to Thai Nguyen that Thomas got to know more about Giap:

That walk through the mountains was when I was closest to Giap. I was
about thirty at the time, and he was maybe three years older. At one
point he told me that his wife and his sister-in-law had both died in
French prisons. He had a very strong feeling against the French. He was
an intense man, no question about it. The French called him a snow-
covered volcano. He was always in control of himself, and obviously very
bright and well educated. His troops looked up to him. I liked him.9

As Thomas’s friendship with Giap developed, his relationship with his
men deteriorated. Thomas’s apparent disregard for the authority of head-
quarters further rankled the members of the Deer Team. On August 19, after

218 CHAPTER EIGHT

nearly two days without radio contact with Poseh because of the rain,
Thomas received a series of messages sent on August 16, 17, and 18 ordering
him not to accept the surrender of any Japanese in the area, to delay his trek
to Hanoi until ordered to proceed, to keep all of his equipment, and to have
the Americans travel alone, allowing only Vietnamese guides to accompany
them. Furthermore, Davis ordered Thomas to obtain “accurate receipts” for
the equipment he had already issued during the course of training. He was
advised on August 18 that the Deer Team, as well as the Cat Team,10 should
proceed to Hanoi with the OSS equipment that would then be returned to an
American base in China via truck. Equipment that the men could not carry
would be “evacuated by air” when possible.11

By the morning of August 19, Thomas had already disobeyed three of the
ffirst four orders: He was well on the way to Hanoi, he was traveling with a large
contingent of the Viet Minh, and on August 15, after hearing of the Japanese
surrender, he had turned over most of the American weapons used in training
to the Vietnamese-American Force. What made the situation even worse,
Thomas appeared to his men not to care that he had disobeyed Poseh’s orders.
In his report on the Deer Team mission, Thomas admitted that the prohibition
against accepting any Japanese surrenders12 was “extremely disheartening” to
him, “as we all felt that we had risked our lives in coming here and now when
the going was to be easy we were not allowed to get in on the gravy.”13

The members of the Deer Team were also concerned that Thomas, having
already decided to help the Viet Minh take control of the town of Thai
Nguyen, seemed far more concerned about the welfare of the Viet Minh than
about that of his own men. As the Deer Team departed their bivouac on Au-
gust 19, Défourneaux could not help but notice the “big red fflag leading” the
way. In addition, he was irritated that Major Thomas “was still in charge of
the guerrillas,” but he was even more disturbed that Giap “appeared to have
full control over our leader.” Défourneaux recorded his impressions in his
diary on August 19:

He doesn’t give a damn about us at all. He doesn’t tell me anything, is
always with Mr. Van [Giap]. Asks my approval only after [he has]
decided to do something. Take[s] me aside to explain to me the
situation, wrongly very often because he doesn’t understand French. He
deliberately disobeyed an order and let his team wonder [sic] around
with[out] any interest on his part whatsoever. I stay with the boys and
cannot help hear their conversations. They hate him, personally I hate
him more and more every day. I feel like a PFC and not like an offficer.14

ON TO HANOI 219

By 7:00 PM on August 19, the men of the Deer Team had settled in for the
night. Restless, Thomas left the room at 7:30 and went to “mix” with the Viet
Minh leaders “to see what they will decide.” Défourneaux and the others lis-
tened to the major’s discussions with the Viet Minh with growing anxiety.
That evening Défourneaux recorded what he had heard in his team diary.
Thomas was, he wrote, “organizing the attack on T-G [Thai Nguyen].” He
was “giving team equipment,” including the “handy-talky and binoculars”
to the Viet Minh. “I heard him give orders to platoon leaders who were to lead
the attack,” wrote Défourneaux. “The men and I could not sleep or relax.”15

Viet Minh veteran Nguyen Chinh also felt Thomas played a large role in
organizing the attack. The “operational plan was invented by the American
friends,” stated Chinh, “especially Mr. Thomas himself.”16 Thomas’s diary
does not clearly indicate his participation in the planning, although he did
state in his offif cial report that part of the rationale for leaving Tan Trao for
Thai Nguyen was to “see what could be done in the way of ‘action.’” He also
included the plan for the following day: “The plan was for a group to go to
the Provincial Governor and get the local guards to surrender, the Americans
were to go to a safe house, and the remainder of the soldiers were to sur-
round the Jap post.”17

In the very early morning hours of August 20, the Deer Team was on the
move again. The Americans, minus Thomas, traveled with about thirty Viet
Minh guerrillas, and as was becoming the pattern, the Viet Minh’s big red
fflag with a gold star led the way. It was a relatively short, easy trip—the ffinal
leg of the walk to Thai Nguyen took only an hour—but the men were both
unclear and unhappy about the decision to leave in the day’s wee hours.
Deer Team member Henry Prunier recalled that although the war had al-
ready ended, “we walked in [to Thai Nguyen] at four o’clock in the morning
[just] as though we were still in combat ourselves.”18 Upon their arrival, the
Americans were surprised to fif nd electric streetlights burning in the Viet-
namese town, and they were relieved to quickly locate the comfortable “safe
house,” where they settled in for some much-desired sleep.

Thomas and Giap, who left an hour later than the men of the Deer Team,
arrived in Thai Nguyen at about 5:00 AM. Their ffirst stop was city hall. In ac-
cordance with the party policy decision of August 12, 1945, Giap sent an ultima-
tum to the Japanese asking for their surrender. But Nguyen Chinh remembered
typing and sending two ultimatums that day: one from Giap and one in Eng-
lish signed by Thomas.19 The surrender document, or documents, undoubtedly
did little to convince the well-ensconced Japanese to hand their arms over to
the Viet Minh. The generic “ultimatum” for all such occasions read in part:

220 CHAPTER EIGHT

Allison Thomas, standing with soldiers of Vo Nguyen Giap’s ragtag army on August 20,
1945, just before embarking for Thai Nguyen, was later resented by some members of the
Deer Team for choosing to march with the Vietnamese rather than accompanying his own
men. Former members of the Viet Minh, however, had fond memories of Thomas’s good
nature and pleasant companionship on the journey. National Archives and Records
Administration.

Japanese offficers and men! The Japanese government has surrendered to
the Allies. The Japanese troops are being gradually disarmed on all
fronts. Before the landing in Indochina of the Allied forces, hand your
arms over to the Viet Minh and to the Viet Nam Liberation Army. By
doing so you will not only have your lives safeguarded but also
contribute to the liberation of the Vietnamese people. The ultimate hour
that is to decide your fate has come! Do not hesitate.20
The surrender, of course, was not that simple. The Japanese “were in a regu-
lar old French fort,” Thomas recollected, “and they weren’t about to surren-
der right away.”21 The party’s August 12 “Call to Uprising” stated that
Japanese troops who did not surrender “must be annihilated,”22 and later
that morning the “battle” for Thai Nguyen began.
Between 6:00 and 6:30 AM, fif ring broke out between the Japanese and the
Viet Minh. At the safe house Défourneaux and the others were tense: “We

ON TO HANOI 221

Soldiers of the Vietnamese-American Force, mostly armed with captured French
weapons, in formation prior to the battle of Thai Nguyen. National Archives and Records
Administration.

had no idea where the Major was, and we were alone between two antago-
nists.” Although the men were dissatisffied about their inability to do what
they had volunteered for during the war—ffight the Japanese—with World
War II already over, none of the Americans, save perhaps Thomas, wanted to
participate in this battle. Thomas sent a message to the safe house, asking
Défourneaux, Squires, and Zielski to join him with the Viet Minh. Although
both Squires and Zielski went, Défourneaux did not. “I did not want to be
involved with whatever he was doing,” Défourneaux recalled, “and in the
process get in trouble [with headquarters].”23

Sporadic ffiring continued throughout the day. That evening, Squires re-
turned to the safe house. He told the men that Thomas had “assisted” in the
surrender discussions between the Japanese and the Viet Minh. But the
Japanese, believing that Thomas was French, refused to surrender to him.
According to Squires, Thomas became quite agitated and tried to prove his
nationality by producing his “identity card, a .38 bullet, and a little Ameri-
can flf ag.” The Japanese, however, continued to believe that Thomas was a
Frenchman—a logical conclusion given the time and place. The Japanese

222 CHAPTER EIGHT

were accustomed to seeing Vietnamese soldiers led by French offif cers and
had no reason to think that the Americans would be working with the Viet
Minh. At that point, Squires told the men, Thomas admitted “that he
shouldn’t have been there.” To Squires, Défourneaux, and the others,
Thomas’s behavior seemed inexplicable. “It seemed,” recorded Dé-
fourneaux, “that he [was] going nuts. . . . When he talks, he starts laughing
for no reasons—a laugh which give[s] the impression of his crazyness [sic].”
Concerned and aggravated, Défourneaux sent the major a note telling him to
“lay off” the Viet Minh and “worry about his team.”24

In his own diary, Thomas recorded nothing of his purported exchange
with the Japanese. But he had been ordered not to accept any Japanese sur-
renders. Given those circumstances, it would have been foolish for him to
record these proceedings in an offficial diary. Thomas wrote that he was
“kept informed of what was happening at all times by a party liaison man.”
By early in the evening, the 160 troops of the “Guard Indigene” (Indochinese
troops which came under Japanese control after the coup) had capitulated to
the Viet Minh.25 The Japanese, however, still held out. Again on August 20,
Défourneaux questioned Thomas’s mental stability. He claimed to have
overheard Thomas “clearly organizing the attack for the next morning with
Mr. Van.” But he had not conducted the planning session, according to Dé-
fourneaux, “like an intelligent offficer would.” Instead, he remembered
Thomas sounding more like a “kid” playing war games.26 The situation was
no doubt unique for Thomas. Although he was accustomed to leading men
in wartime, he was not in the habit of leading Vietnamese men in the post-
war world. Any participation, no matter how brief, in the attack on Thai
Nguyen was essentially disobeying orders. Thus, he had every reason to ex-
hibit nervous laughter.

On August 21 the Deer Team again parted company and missions, with
Thomas heading in one direction and his men another. Défourneaux and
Zielski went in search of a more suitable house for the team. Although their
current residence was pleasant enough, it was too small. They located a
large, elaborate home and spent the ffirst part of the day moving in. By early
afternoon ffiring had resumed. Vogt and Zielski crawled out to see what was
going on. Défourneaux and the others remained safely behind the walls.
“The war is over,” wrote Défourneaux, “why take a chance on getting
bumped off now[?]” When the shooting had ceased, Thomas returned to
check on the men. Seeing they were all safe, he reportedly regaled them with
stories of the attack and the “fun” he was having—tales that Défourneaux
angrily classifif ed as “a big line of shit.” Thomas returned to “whatever” he

ON TO HANOI 223

had been doing, giving Défourneaux and the others the distinct impression
that he “was still directing the Viet Minh operation.”27

Thomas’s role in the battle can perhaps best be explained by examining
the Viet Minh rationale for attacking. Stein Tønnesson looked at several dif-
ferent motivations for the clash, including the possibility that the ffight was
intended to enhance the image of the Viet Minh,28 to be used as propaganda,
or to allow Giap to test his forces. A further possibility is that the battle was
“to impress the US Allies.” Tønnesson wrote: “French services in China had
received information that the Viet Minh intended to launch an attack on a
major Japanese position in order to give the United States a pretext for help-
ing them. . . . After all the preparations, both the Army commanders and the
OSS advisers may have been reluctant to call the whole thing off merely be-
cause the Japanese had capitulated.”29

Given Thomas’s budding friendship with Giap as well as with Ho Chi
Minh, he may have felt he had little to lose and much to gain by helping
plan the attack. Although Thomas could play no offif cial role at this stage,
he could advise his new friends and rejoice in their success. When prodded
years later about his relationship with Giap, Thomas grew defensive. “I
was friendly with him,” Thomas admitted, “and why shouldn’t I be? After
all, we were both there for the same purpose, ffighting the Japanese. . . . it
wasn’t my job to fif nd out whether he was a Communist or not. We were
ffighting a common enemy.”30 Although his offficial account of August 21 did
not indicate his own participation on any level, years after the fact Thomas
admitted that he had helped “somewhat in the planning of Thai Nguyen,”
adding that the battle was necessary “from Giap’s perspective.”31 His 1945
report did indicate his relative proximity to the Viet Minh during the attack
and also provided an excellent account of the weapons in their possession at
Thai Nguyen:

The Vietminh decided to launch a small attack to show the Japs how
strong they were. About 3 PM “all hell” broke loose. The Vietminh fif red
for about 10 minutes with French riffles, French machine guns, Jap
machine guns (that had been captured in previous engagements), British
stens and brens (which the British had parachuted to the French here),
grenades and weapons which we had given them which included
bazookas, M-1s, and HE Anti-tank grenades. However, the Japs were
well installed in their concrete fortiffications and it is doubtful if any were
even wounded at this time. But the townspeople were duly impressed by
the “attack.”32

224 CHAPTER EIGHT

The occasional ffighting between the Japanese and the Viet Minh continued
on August 22, 23, and 24. On the twenty-second Défourneaux wired Poseh:
“We are now in Thai Nguyen. The Major is in the outskirts of the town. The
remaining team is in the center of the town. Battle between Viet Minh and Jap
Garrison started Monday [August] twenty, still going on. Street fif ghting day
and night.”33 On August 23 Giap and “2 sections of troops” apparently de-
parted for Hanoi, where events were unfolding very quickly. Despite Giap’s
absence, the Viet Minh attacked a number of other buildings, including the
Japanese stables.34 Although most sources maintain that Giap’s lieutenants
directed the attack,35 Défourneaux believed Thomas was “in charge of the
operations.”36 Whether or not he led the operation is open to speculation.
However, in their ffinal attack on August 25, the Viet Minh “liberated” a con-
siderable supply of food and weapons from the Japanese, materiel that
Thomas itemized and included in an attachment to his offif cial report.37 Fi-
nally, later in the afternoon, the Japanese agreed to a cease-ffire. The Japanese
would be allowed to keep their arms; however, they would be conffined to
their post and the Viet Minh would send food in to them.

Historian Douglas Pike described this brief battle for Thai Nguyen as es-
pecially signifif cant. “General Giap led the new armed force into the fif rst bat-
tle on 16 August 1945, an attack from Tan Trao, Tuyen Quang province, on
Thai Nguyen town, which,” Pike wrote, “marked the ‘liberation’ of Viet-
nam.”38 Stein Tønnesson observed the importance of the battle of Thai
Nguyen in Vietnamese history but described it as being more a “pièce de
théâtre” (play). In his evaluation, Tønnesson emphasized a number of cru-
cial elements, including the facts that the local Viet Minh cadres were al-
ready negotiating with the Japanese garrison when Giap arrived, “preparing
for a peaceful transfer of power”; that the deliberately arrogant nature of
Giap’s ultimatum foiled the negotiations; and that the much-heralded battle
did not cost any lives.39 There is some dispute about the loss of life during
the battle, however. Thomas testiffied that six Japanese were killed “for cer-
tain,” and several more wounded, but the exact number was “unveriffied.” In
addition, he claimed that three Viet Minh soldiers and ffive civilians were
killed and that eleven Viet Minh and ten civilians were wounded in the six
days of fif ghting.40

Nevertheless, on August 26 the town of Thai Nguyen celebrated its free-
dom from the Japanese. There was a parade in town, and “almost every
building had a Vietminh flf ag waving.” Thomas also noted that “the newly or-
ganized municipal government got under way” that day.41 With the new gov-
ernment in place, the electricity, which had been cut off during the battle,

ON TO HANOI 225

René Défourneaux, sitting on the bumper, and Allison Thomas, standing with a Viet
Minh member leaning against one of the “charcoal burner” buses that ran between Hanoi
and Thai Nguyen. Défourneaux often questioned the appropriateness of Thomas’s
apparent sympathies with the Vietnamese. National Archives and Records

was restored, pleasing all of the Americans. While Thomas was in Thai
Nguyen, Ho Chi Minh arrived for a brief visit. He asked Thomas and the Deer
Team to accompany him to Hanoi, but a disappointed Thomas, ordered to
“stay put” by headquarters, reluctantly rejected Ho’s request. During Ho’s
visit he also reported on other Americans, telling Thomas that Dan Phelan
had recently flf own out on an L-5 and that an American mission had arrived
in Hanoi.42

Disappointed at having to remain outside the capital city, the team wel-
comed a diversion for dinner that evening. While visiting the Catholic mis-
sion in town, Prunier, Hoagland, and Vogt met Father Pedro, a Dominican
priest from Spain, and invited him to join the Americans for their evening
meal.43 Father Pedro spent three hours talking with Défourneaux that night
and an additional two hours with him the next day. Défourneaux was excited
to interview the priest and to learn more about Indochina. “The Major only
knew what the Vietminh wanted him to know, which was very little,” com-
plained Défourneaux, but Father Pedro, having lived in Tonkin since 1936,

226 CHAPTER EIGHT

simply “had better sources of information than we did.”44 The priest reiter-
ated the history of the capitulation of France to the Japanese, the Japanese
coup in March, and the Japanese use of propaganda with the Vietnamese
people. Although Father Pedro did not realize it, his version of events cor-
roborated much of what the Viet Minh had already told the OSS.

The Americans could very easily gain further confif rmation of much of
what Father Pedro told them. In fact, the Deer Team had a very recent ex-
ample of probable Japanese propaganda. When Ho met Thomas at Thai
Nguyen, he gave him a copy of two letters, which the Viet Minh had trans-
lated, allegedly sent from the Japanese garrisons at Thai Nguyen and Cho
Chu to the “Viet Minh League.” The letter from the Japanese army at Thai
Nguyen, dated April 11, 1945, chastised the Viet Minh for “destroying the
truce,” disrupting communications between Thai Nguyen and Tuyen
Quang, and creating fear among the population. The letter reminded the
Viet Minh that the Japanese were responsible for freeing the Vietnamese
from their French overlords and encouraged them to rethink the situation in
the light of inevitable consequences:

From the beginning, you did not understand our sincerity, and you
always organize anti-Jap movement. You must consider carefully. Only
Japan can help you realizing your hope. Hoping England or America to
save Vietnam from the French hands, has the same sense as saving the
Vietnam people from sunburn by throwing them into the fif re.

In order to keep peace and order in Tuyen-Quang and Thainguen, we
are forced to use armed troups [sic] against your senseless activities. But
before sending out our troops, we sent you this letter, asking you to stop
immediately the destruction of roads between these two provinces. . . . If
you don’t listen to our advice, it will then happen heartbreaking things:
the Yellow men killing the Yellow men, and you will fif nd yourselves in
miserable situation.45

The second letter, dated a month later, was an open proclamation to the
populace surrounding Cho Chu that reprimanded the local Vietnamese for
failing to understand the good intentions of the Japanese and cautioned
them about the Viet Minh:

Recently, the Japanese have driven the French out of Indo-China, and
given independence back to Vietnam people. But that independence
seems as shattered because of the Communist[s]. . . . But they

ON TO HANOI 227

understand nothing about communism as published by the Russian
Lenin. Such are the Communist[s] of Indo-China. Let them awake
quickly!46

Father Pedro confif rmed Japanese attempts to get the Viet Minh involved in
their ffight against the Allies and the Viet Minh refusal to do so. He also ex-
plained that the Viet Minh continued to harass the Japanese regardless of
their threats. Although Father Pedro complimented many aspects of the Viet
Minh, he cautioned that their activities were primarily directed against the
French and French collaborators, noting that their main activities were
“stealing and killing.”47 After Father Pedro’s visit, the Americans had few
distractions in Thai Nguyen; the major wrote reports, and the men played
cards and wandered about town, taking pictures and eating the ample food
provided by the Viet Minh.48 As the days became more and more monoto-
nous, the men’s thoughts centered on moving on to Hanoi and beginning their
long trip home. The man who delayed their long-awaited homecoming was
the head of the American Mercy Team in Hanoi, Captain Archimedes Patti.

A month prior to the Japanese surrender, the OSS had begun preparing for
the rescue of “some twenty thousand American and Allied POWs and about
ffifteen thousand civilian internees in Japanese hands.” The “commando-
type” units responsible for carrying out those missions were known as
“Mercy Teams.” When news of the end of the war came, the OSS and the
Fourteenth Air Force were ready, and the fif rst Mercy Teams left for various
parts of China on August 15. During the next seven days, additional teams
were formed, including a team led by Patti, bound for Hanoi. Because of in-
clement weather, Patti did not leave Kunming until August 22. On that day,
he flf ew out with the American members of his team, plus a small French
contingent led by Jean Sainteny.49

Sainteny’s battle to get aboard the American fflight to Hanoi had been
very diffif cult. Overall, the French in China were very unhappy with their lot.
The war ended more quickly than they had anticipated, and although by
mid-August there were a few Frenchmen participating in OSS units along
the border, the French had been unable to reenter Indochina in signifficant
numbers. Sainteny, hoping to reestablish a French presence at the earliest
possible moment, requested permission to join the Mercy Team bound for
Hanoi. By August 18 the OSS had learned that the French government had
decided to “adopt a passive, diplomatic attitude toward the reoccupation of
Indo-China”; Major Sainteny asserted he would represent the new “liberal”
French policy in Hanoi.50

228 CHAPTER EIGHT

Sainteny’s initial appeal to join the Mercy Team was rejected by Wede-
meyer, who saw “no useful purpose in the French going to Hanoi on the
Mercy Team fflight,” adding that “arrangements were being made for a
French presence in Hanoi ‘at the proper time.’”51 Given his intense desire to
reestablish a “victorious” French presence in Vietnam, an aggravated Sain-
teny lashed out at the Americans. Sainteny believed that the French “had
been betrayed by the Americans and that General Wedemeyer personally
has been hindering French activities in this theater [and had] not been hon-
est with the French right from the beginning of negotiations.”52

In addition to Wedemeyer’s apparent snub, Sainteny also received the bad
news that the French team he had attempted to infif ltrate into Haiphong had
been detained by the Japanese. The leader of the team, Captain Blanchard,
did make contact with Lieutenant Colonel Kamiya, the former liaison offficer
between the Japanese military headquarters in Hanoi and the administrative
offfices of Admiral Decoux, but he was disappointed in the results. Instead of
being permitted to reoccupy key offfices, the French team was conffined to
transmitting messages related to the upcoming surrender ceremony and me-
teorological data to the French offif ces in Kunming. No doubt Sainteny was
equally disturbed by the news that “Annamite leaders” in Kunming had
“expressed the desire to bring Indo-China under status of an American pro-
tectorate”53 and were hoping that the United States would intercede on their
behalf with the United Nations to prevent the French “from their reoccupa-
tion of Indo-China” and to exclude the Chinese.54

In an attempt to placate the irate Frenchman, Patti and Wedemeyer
agreed that Sainteny and his staff could go with the OSS Mercy Team pro-
vided they conffined their activities to “humanitarian tasks in the French
community.”55 Adding insult to injury, the French were to fall under “com-
plete” U.S. command, and they could under no circumstances use the
French fflag as part of the mission.56

As Patti, Sainteny, and their staffs approached the Gia Lam airport outside
Hanoi, tensions ran high. None of the men knew for certain what the Japanese
response to their landing would be. Viewing the small tanks and antiaircraft
guns on the airfif eld, Patti decided to drop in a reconnaissance party led by a
native of Baltimore, Maryland, Captain Ray Grelecki. Although trained at
Fort Benning and experienced in parachute drops, Grelecki was understand-
ably uneasy about dropping in on the well-outfif tted enemy below. Even
though he was fully armed and in combat dress, he was obviously ill-prepared
to meet a Japanese tank “with maybe a squad—ten or twelve Japanese—on
the sides with their big bayonets” that came rolling toward him.57

ON TO HANOI 229

When Patti’s team landed at Gia Lam airport, they were greeted with cheers from a large
contingent of POWs from the nearby prison camp. Americans wore the flag on the back
of their uniforms to aid in their rapid identification by both the French and the Japanese.
Archimedes L. Patti, Papers, Special Collections, University of Central Florida, Orlando.

Fortunately, the captain’s party met no opposition and soon radioed Patti
that it was safe to land. Patti recalled that a unit of fif fty to sixty fully armed
Japanese soldiers surrounded his plane. At about the same time, a large con-
tingent of Indian (British) POWs from the nearby prison broke camp and
cheered the arrival of the Allies.58 The well-ordered and well-disciplined
Japanese soldiers blocked the advance of the POWs but neither fif red on
them nor made hostile moves toward Patti’s group. Patti then proceeded to
conduct the business he had come for: checking on the status of the POWs
and arranging for transport into Hanoi.

On the way into the city, the team passed numerous Viet Minh flf ags and
large banners, printed in English, French, and Vietnamese, reading “Down
with French Imperialism” and “Independence or Death!” Patti also recalled
seeing a large “boisterous and hostile” crowd on the way to Hanoi.59 “They
had learned” he recalled, “that the French had arrived in an American plane
under the protection of Americans.” Once in Hanoi, Patti and his team set
up their headquarters at the Hotel Métropole and were welcomed by a dif-
ferent sort of crowd: anxious and jubilant French residents who greeted
Sainteny and the Americans with “joy and relief.”60 A number of the colons

230 CHAPTER EIGHT

The fifty to sixty fully armed Japanese soldiers who surrounded Patti’s plane did not
oppose the American landing, and afterward, in a very orderly manner, they loaded their
gear on trucks for transport into Hanoi. Archimedes L. Patti, Papers, Special Collections,
University of Central Florida, Orlando.

reportedly were terrifif ed that “a group” who had killed “three or four of the
Frenchmen” the night before would, as they had promised, return to kill
again. Patti turned to Grelecki for his input. Grelecki noted, “This was my
responsibility, it was a matter of the ffield and not an intellectual desk exer-
cise. I am a ffield man, did about 150 pushups with one hand and I consider
this fif ne person Patti as a desk man, they always had this belly on them.”
Grelecki decided to prepare the hotel for any possible attack and installed
his 60 mm mortars on the roof. He also moved a number of the French
women and children to another location. Nothing occurred, and the precau-
tions ended up being just that, but Grelecki stated, “Candidly we were fully
unprepared to go into Hanoi.”61

The evening of their fif rst night in Hanoi proved to be a busy one for
Patti as well as for Grelecki. Patti received a number of visitors, including
Le Trung Nghia, “representing the Hanoi City Committee,” who welcomed
Patti to the city and offered the services of his committee in facilitating the
Americans’ mission. He further questioned Patti about the arrival of the
French, American attitudes, and Patti’s knowledge of Ho Chi Minh. “In re-
sponse to his questions,” Patti recalled, “I assured him that no, I did not

ON TO HANOI 231

Archimedes Patti and other Americans were impressed by the orderly demonstrations in
Hanoi in which participants carried signs in English, as well as Vietnamese and French,
denouncing colonialism and demanding independence. Patti commented: “From what I
have seen these people mean business. The French will have to deal with them. For that
matter we will all have to deal with them” (Patti to Indiv, NNNR61, September 2, 1945
[RG 226, Entry 154, Box 199, Folder 3373, NARA]). Archimedes L. Patti, Papers, Special
Collections, University of Central Florida, Orlando.

anticipate the arrival of French troops; yes, there would be additional
Americans coming shortly; yes, it was true that I had met President Ho Chi
Minh; and no, the United States did not support colonialism.”62

Although brief, the question-and-answer session produced answers that
could be successfully manipulated by the Viet Minh in the future. Le Trung
Nghia and many other Vietnamese who had not lived in or traveled to the
Viet Bac may well have doubted Ho Chi Minh’s connection to the powerful
winners of World War II. Yet the senior American offficial to land in Hanoi
admitted freely that he knew of and indeed had already met Ho. Further-
more, he told the Viet Minh exactly what they wanted to hear: More Ameri-
cans—not Frenchmen—were on the way.63

Although most of the Vietnamese in Hanoi were thrilled with the possibil-
ity that there would not be an armed French return, the French population
delighted in the prospect that there would soon be a French show of force.
With Sainteny’s delegation in the Hotel Métropole, the scene in the lobby

232 CHAPTER EIGHT

soon resembled, noted Patti, “Grand Central Station at rush hour.”64 It was
soon agreed among the Americans, the French, and the Japanese that the
Americans and the French should be housed in separate quarters. Thus,
Sainteny and his delegation were moved to the Governor-General’s Palace.65
From Patti’s perspective the move improved his situation. “I was only too
glad,” he reminisced, “to be able to pursue my mission without the risk of
public disorders or political entanglements.”66 Although Patti stated that
Sainteny was “obviously pleased” to make the move, his satisfaction was
short-lived. Over the next few days the opulent palace came to feel more like
Sainteny’s prison.67

On August 23, while Sainteny was moving to the Governor-General’s
Palace, Patti was busy with a host of visitors, including the president of the
Bank of Indochina and the ranking Japanese offif cer in Hanoi, General
Tsuchihashi Yuitsu. In his early-morning meeting with Tsuchihashi, Patti
described the nature of his mission and emphasized the Japanese responsi-
bility to maintain public order. In his wires for that day, Patti assured Kun-
ming that the Japanese were not interfering in the Mercy Team mission and
indeed had already released “287 British Indian POWs.”68 He was con-
cerned, however, with their recent withdrawal of 50 million piastres and re-
quest for an additional 20 million, from the Bank of Indochina for “payment
of expenses incurred in maintaining law and order plus the protection of the
French.”69 The bank director echoed Patti’s concern, fearing the Japanese
would bankrupt the most important ffinancial institution in the colony.

Vietnamese actions also prompted Patti to send a series of wires to Kun-
ming on August 23. In at least three separate messages he expressed concern
about additional French personnel arriving in Vietnam and the reactions of
the Viet Minh. He began by stating, “Political situation critical. Vietminh
strong and belligerent. Deffinitely out French, suggest no more French be
permitted enter FIC and especially armed.” Later in the day he added, “I re-
peat again that it will be most dangerous for armed Frenchmen to enter In-
dochina. Units are being formed to repulse the entry of armed French.” The
OSS offfice in Kunming, eager to withdraw their agents from the ffield,
queried Patti about using French boats and crews to get the OSS team out of
Pakhoi, where a QUAIL base had already been established. The Kunming of-
ffice, respectful of Patti’s take on the situation on the ground, also asked his
opinion about a request from OSS agent Lucien Conein to use fourteen
armed French personnel to get him to Hanoi. Patti’s response was clear: “In
view of the delicate political situation my recommendation is to stop our
boys from proceeding to Hanoi with French personnel.” He contrasted the

ON TO HANOI 233

American delegation’s freedom to circulate about Hanoi to Sainteny’s posi-
tion, which he described as “incommunicado at the government palace.”
Patti further warned that the Japanese were trying to stir up “5th column ac-
tivities” using Vietnamese “as agents.” In addition, “rumors are being
spread,” he cautioned, “that the French are coming from Laugson [sic] and
by boat killing [Annamite] children and women. Vietminhs are recruiting a
people’s army to keep French out.”70

Patti’s perceptions of the tensions in Hanoi on that hot August day were
accurate. In his memoirs, he portrayed the scene and the American role:

This city of seeming normalcy and peacefulness was seething below the
surface, and it obviously did not take much for it to erupt. Our OSS
team had immediately become a center of Allied authority to which
everyone with a cause or a desire for prestige brought himself to be
heard. The French came to complain, make demands, and play
conspiratorial games. The Vietnamese came to be seen with the Allies
and acquire status in the eyes of their adversaries, creating an image of
“insiders” with the American Mission.71

In an attempt to distance himself from the French, partly in recognition of
the anti-French attitude among the Vietnamese and the image of the Hotel
Métropole “as the rendezvous for many of the prominent French in Hanoi,”
Patti moved the American mission and its gear to the spacious Maison Gau-
tier on August 24. There “the American flf ag was conspicuously displayed in
the large reception room . . . signifying to all that this headquarters was an
American installation, offficiated by independent United States representa-
tives with allegiance to none.”72

Although the Americans wished to be viewed as “strictly neutral,” they
were not. Neither the French nor the Vietnamese regarded the Americans as
impartial. At the Governor-General’s Palace, Major Sainteny was increas-
ingly unhappy in what he called his “golden cage.” Sainteny had long
deemed Patti and most of the OSS in Kunming anti-French and inimical to
French aspirations. Soon after his arrival in Hanoi, Sainteny again com-
plained to Patti, this time about the activities of an OSS agent already on his
list of anti-French Americans: Major Allison Thomas. Remembering
Thomas’s role in having Montfort, Logos, and Phac removed from the Viet
Minh headquarters in July, Sainteny was livid when he read Thomas’s name
in one of the local Hanoi newspapers in an article entitled “Viet Minh Fight-
ing [in Collaboration] with U.S. Troops in Tonkin Will Soon Be Here to Oust

234 CHAPTER EIGHT

the French Oppressors Who Last Year Starved 2 Million People.” Luckily,
neither Patti nor Sainteny knew the extent of Thomas’s actions in Thai
Nguyen. They certainly had no knowledge at that point that Thomas had at-
tempted to help Giap gain the Japanese surrender at Thai Nguyen.

Patti listened to Sainteny’s grievances and attempted to improve the situ-
ation by recommending that the Deer Team be withdrawn from Thai
Nguyen and that other OSS teams working along and inside the Indochina
border be recalled to Kunming. He advised Kunming of the newspaper
headline and warned headquarters that the Vietnamese were excitedly
awaiting Thomas’s arrival “to stage [an] anti-French demonstration.”73 “I
hoped to disassociate all our Americans from either the Viet Minh or the
French causes,” Patti wrote afterward. “But our teams were very loath to
submit. Order and Theater policy seemed to matter little to them. They were
in high spirits and the repeated messages ordering them to Kunming had lit-
tle effect; they wanted to pursue their own paths to victory.”74

In August 1945 no one was working harder to blaze a path to victory than
the Viet Minh. When Patti arrived in Hanoi, there was substantial optimism
among the Vietnamese that they might fif nally achieve the freedom for
which they had worked so long. Three days before Patti’s entrance, the Viet
Minh had taken over the city without bloodshed, initiating what became
known as the August Revolution.75 As the revolution began, Giap had not
yet arrived in Hanoi either. Years later he recalled, “Having thoroughly un-
derstood the Party’s instructions, and taking advantage of the extreme de-
moralization of the Japanese forces, the consternation of the puppet gov-
ernment and the vacillation of the security troops, the local Party
organizations and Viet Minh organizations immediately took the initiative
to lead the people to seize power.”76

While Giap was still marching on Thai Nguyen, the city of Hanoi erupted.
On the morning of August 19, “tens of thousands of villagers” carrying
“spears, machetes, knives, reaping hooks, and sickles” began marching to-
ward the city to the “sound of drums, cymbals, and horns.” Already in place
were nearly “eight hundred self-defense unit members” under the direct
control of the Viet Minh. Although ill-equipped, with only “about ninety
ffirearms, as well as machetes, swords, spears, and knives,” the cadres were
excited at what the day might bring. The self-defense units assumed various
positions throughout the city, while the largest group, perhaps as many as
200,000 people, fif lled the streets and square in front of the opera house. At
11:00 AM, Nguyen Huy Khoi gave a brief speech about the end of the war and
the need to establish a Vietnamese “revolutionary people’s government.”77

ON TO HANOI 235

After the oration at the opera house, the group marched on and successfully
took over the palace of the Kham Sai (imperial delegate), the city hall, the
hospital, the post offfice, and the treasury building. In some places, such as at
the Kham Sai’s Palace, they successfully seized the weapons of the civil
guardsmen.78 Although there were initial diffficulties, they also succeeded in
gaining control of the Civil Guard barracks. “Everywhere people were cele-
brating the victory, the bloodless taking of power,” Vu Dinh Huynh said with
obvious pride. “Everyone wanted to contribute something to the cause. We
really had a marvelous group of intellectuals, and we were very proud.”79

Although not everyone was pleased to see the Viet Minh assuming control,
most ordinary Vietnamese were jubilant. David Marr wrote:

The atmosphere on the streets of Hanoi was euphoric. Revolutionary
change was symbolized that evening by people removing the black air-
raid blinkers on all street lamps, giving a bright glow to the city for the
fif rst time in years. Viet Minh flf ags hung from hundreds of buildings.
Thousands of citizens promenaded the sidewalks downtown, enjoying
the new sense of freedom. People stopped to admire the new armed
guards in front of public buildings, especially one proud sentinel in front
of the Kham Sai’s Palace who sported a belt of ammunition strung
across his chest. They also marveled at the huge fflag ffluttering from the
tall lightning rod on the Palace. . . . As one young participant ruminated,
not in his wildest imagination could he have expected such a
transformation in one day.80

When Prime Minister Tran Trong Kim heard about the events in Hanoi he
felt “ambivalent.” Kim, according to his nephew, Bui Diem,81 would have
been “amenable” to an “orderly, legitimate transfer of power,” and he felt
that the coup put him in a diffif cult position. However, the prime minister de-
cided to resign from his post on August 19 anyway because, he told his
nephew, “it appeared this new party had the backing of the Americans.”
“Clearly,” added Bui Diem, “the United States was going to have a strong
voice in determining the immediate future of Vietnam, and my uncle was not
alone in believing that whoever had the Americans’ conffidence would be best
placed to guide the nation during the postwar period.”82 Seeking to solidify
their control of the city, the Viet Minh set about reestablishing order in
Hanoi over the next few days.

Although the announcement to “launch the insurrection” had gone out
via the radio transmitter left by Mac Shin earlier, it was only received by the

236 CHAPTER EIGHT

stations in Lang Son, Cao Bang, and Ha Giang.83 Most uprisings were in
fact reactions by local committees to the evolving situation. In the outlying
regions of the north, Viet Minh representatives “marched on government
offfices, detained mandarins, ransacked ffiles, hung Viet Minh fflags, talked
incessantly, collected whatever fif rearms were available and organized revo-
lutionary committees.” News of the events in Hanoi quickly spread south
into central Vietnam, and on August 23 an estimated 100,000 peasants
marched into Hue and cheered the formation of a Viet Minh liberation com-
mittee.84 Although the commander of the Japanese garrison in Hue offered
the emperor protection, Bao Dai rejected the proposal. Marveling at the in-
credibly rapid “miracle” occurring, he placed his faith in the people and re-
signed himself to the fact that the proverbial Mandate of Heaven had
passed to the Viet Minh.85 On the suggestion of a telegram from the “Patri-
otic Committee” in Hanoi,86 the emperor, only recently “liberated” by the
Japanese, decided to renounce the imperial throne and become the “simple
citizen” Vinh-Thuy. On August 25 he announced his intention to abdicate to
the stunned members of the royal court, stating that he would “rather live
as a simple citizen in an independent nation than as the king of a subju-
gated nation.”87

As Bao Dai was preparing to deliver what he believed would be his last
speech as emperor, Patti met with various members of the Vietnamese press
in Hanoi, one of whom passed along the news, then only a rumor, that the
emperor might abdicate the throne. The Vietnamese press representatives
arrived with a message for Patti: “We welcome the Americans to our coun-
try. We appreciate that Captain Patti has given us audience to hear our
grievances.” Patti listened to what had become a familiar litany of French
abuses and excesses and issued a brief statement attempting to clarify the
American position:

We Americans appreciate your warm welcome. Our job is purely a
military one and please let that be fif rmly understood; our position and
attitude is of a neutral nature. We are here for the sole purpose to pave
the way for the forthcoming peace conferences designed to offif cially
terminate hostilities. You are welcome to see me at any time, as is any
person of any party and of any nationality.88

Although Patti believed that his words clearly established the American
role in Hanoi, his actions were easily misinterpreted by both the French and
the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese press account of the August 25 meeting

ON TO HANOI 237

differed substantially from Patti’s OSS “Daily Activities Report,” which
stressed American neutrality. In the Vietnamese account, Patti reportedly
stated that

a) the French had no role in discussions between the Allies and the
Japanese in Indochina; b) the Allies were not assisting or authorizing a
French military return; c) the United States was well aware that Vietnam
was a civilized country, “not barbaric as still thought by some”; and d)
when the offif cial Allied mission arrived to take the Japanese surrender,
Vietnamese citizens ought to mount peaceful demonstrations demanding
independence.89

“Enjoying his role as amateur plenipotentiary, Patti said too much,” con-
cluded David Marr. But “on the other hand, his Vietnamese listeners, desper-
ately eager for American recognition, heard even more than Patti uttered.”90

The events of August 26 further enhanced Patti’s image as a tacit sup-
porter of the Viet Minh. In the morning, Patti met brieflf y with four Viet Minh
representatives, including Vo Nguyen Giap. Following the meeting, Giap in-
vited Patti to step outside the American compound to be welcomed by “the
people.” The Americans watched as the “quasi-military” parade of civil
guardsmen and self-defense teams marched past, followed by civilians car-
rying patriotic placards in English, Russian, and Chinese, all accompanied
by a “ffifty piece military band.”91 The assembled Americans and Viet-
namese saluted the flf uttering flf ags of the United States, the Soviet Union,
Great Britain, China, and Vietnam and listened as their respective national
anthems were played. Although Patti was impressed by the display, it held a
deeper signifif cance for the Vietnamese. As Giap prepared to leave, Patti re-
membered him commenting: “This is the ffirst time in the history of Viet
Nam that our flf ag has been displayed in an international ceremony and our
national anthem played in honor of a foreign guest. I will long remember this
occasion.”92 As refflected in his memoirs, the event clearly represented a sig-
nifficant moment for Patti as well. As Patti returned to work inside the com-
pound, Giap spoke with reporters on scene, “conveying Patti’s alleged re-
mark that ‘the independence of Vietnam is quite clear already; it simply
needs to be consolidated.’”93

Whether or not Patti actually made the comment became irrelevant. It
was reported that he had, and the paper’s readership had only to admire the
accompanying photos of Patti and Giap saluting the procession to assure
themselves of his good will toward the new Vietnamese nation.

238 CHAPTER EIGHT

At the conclusion of the welcome “ceremony” for the Patti mission, the national anthems
of both the United States and Vietnam were played as the Allied flags fluttered alongside
the new Vietnamese standard. Giap, center in white suit, reportedly commented to Patti,
on his right, that he would long remember the occasion as the first time the Vietnamese
flag had been displayed and its national anthem played at an international ceremony.
Archimedes L. Patti, Papers, Special Collections, University of Central Florida, Orlando.

Patti’s activities for the day were only beginning, however. Upon his re-
turn to his quarters, he received an invitation to dine with Ho Chi Minh, who
had recently arrived in Hanoi. Patti recalled being “pleased” to see Ho, but
he was concerned at Ho’s obvious physical weakness. After lunching with
Ho, Giap, and several others, Patti and Ho were left alone to talk for the next
two hours. They covered a wide variety of topics of the day, including the
“uprisings” in Saigon and Hanoi, which Patti recalled being “glad to learn”
more about, and the imminent arrival of the Chinese and British to accept
the Japanese surrender north and south of the sixteenth parallel, respec-
tively.94 Patti proffered what had become his standard litany: He was “ex-
tremely limited” by his directive and had “no authority to become involved
in French-Vietnamese politics.” Ho responded that he understood perfectly,
asking only that Patti not report his “whereabouts” to either the French or
the Chinese, and adding with a smile: “Today we will talk as friends, not

ON TO HANOI 239

diplomats.” Before leaving, Patti suggested that perhaps a meeting between
Ho and Sainteny might prove fruitful. Although Ho expressed his doubts, he
conceded that Patti “could use his best judgment in the matter.”95

Over the next week, both the French and the Americans in Kunming
questioned Patti’s judgment, for this was only the ffirst of several controver-
sial and public appearances Patti made with Ho and other members of the
Viet Minh.96 Patti was much maligned for not maintaining his neutrality,
and like Fenn, Tan, Phelan, and Thomas, his actions were misinterpreted by
all sides. As reported in the daily activities reports and reiterated in his
memoir, Patti received a long stream of visitors in Hanoi, most of whom
made requests of one sort or another to the Americans. He had no personal
connection to the long parade of individuals making demands, yet he did
have a special relationship with the one man who seemingly did not agitate
for his favors.

Patti and Ho Chi Minh had developed a friendly relationship in Kunming,
and Ho proved to be a very cooperative agent. He provided what he prom-
ised to Patti and welcomed the Deer Team into his camp. Ho seemed to be
the focus of great excitement in Hanoi, and he placed Patti on a perpetual
pedestal. Moreover, Ho was, in many respects, the closest thing Patti had to
a friend in the city. It should have surprised no one that the American dined
with and listened to his eloquent friend, especially when the alternative was
the very unhappy Major Sainteny in his “golden cage.”97 As this situation
developed, however, it became increasingly diffficult for Patti to maintain
“strict neutrality.”

Conversely, Patti should not have been even remotely surprised when the
French, especially Sainteny, grew quite unhappy with him. On the evening of
August 26, Patti brought up to Sainteny the possibility of meeting with Ho.98
Sainteny readily agreed, and Patti sent a message to Ho, who assented to a
meeting the next morning between Giap, then the minister of the interior for
the Provisional Viet Minh Government, and Sainteny, “if” Patti recalled, “I
accompanied him.” Patti, having facilitated the meeting, and no doubt eager
to participate in the proceedings, considered the condition trivial and happily
agreed to accompany Giap to the Governor-General’s Palace. Once again, Ho
had skillfully manipulated the situation without making the American feel
manipulated. Ho was no doubt well aware of the impression Patti’s appear-
ance at Giap’s side would make—a Vietnamese delegate accompanied by an
American offif cer, visiting a captive French offficial guarded by the defeated
Japanese. The American and Viet Minh representative came and went at their
own convenience, the Frenchman could do little more than sit and wait.